6 Clues to Eye Problems in Kids

The American Academy of Ophthalmology and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend that children have their eyes checked by a pediatrician at birth and at every well-baby visit. Then, after the age of five, your child should receive eye examinations each year to assess the healthy development of each eye. If it’s been awhile since you’ve taken your child for an eye exam, the good news is that the professional and caring medical staff at Express ER can get you caught up in one simple visit!

What to Look for At Home

What are some of the clues that you should be looking for to avoid having to search for an “emergency room near me” because they could signal that something might be amiss with your child’s developing eyes? Although this list is by no means inclusive of everything that an urgent care will look for when testing your child’s vision, it’s a good starting point to use as an at-home benchmark:

• Your child takes an abnormally long time taken when doing homework
• Your child has difficulty visually interpreting certain letters of the alphabet
• Your child displays poor reading/writing/spelling skills
• Your child often re-reads or skips lines when reading
• Your child displays abnormal level of frustration with schoolwork
• Your child frequently turns their head to the side when listening to someone speak

Apart from seeking urgent care for your child when it’s needed, one of the most important things you can do as a parent to ensure your child’s success in life is to seek an early developmental optometric diagnosis when your child displays one or more of the above symptoms.

How Vision Therapy Can Help

In many cases, your child’s vision can be corrected with the help of vision therapy if caught early enough. Some of the most common problems that vision therapy is designed to address include:

• Double vision
• Convergence insufficiency
• Crossed eyes
• Irregular eye alignment (also known as Strabismus)
• Lazy eye (also known as Amblyopia)
• Reading and learning difficulties

Some Closing Thoughts

In closing, remember that good habits in children are most often instilled at home. Knowing that, and wanting to protect the health of your child’s eyes, try to encourage them to read with adequate lighting discourage excessive screen time. And never underestimate the importance of adequate sleep time!