School is an exciting time for children, full of opportunities to learn new things and discover new interests. It is during these years that the building blocks are put into place that shape who we are and who we become. But what happens when a child does not have all of the tools necessary to learn? With school starting for many during the next few weeks, it is time to think about what is required for effective learning; things like a good curriculum, a skilled teacher and an engaged student. But by having these things do you guarantee success in school? Is that all you need? The answer to these questions is no. An equally important prerequisite for learning is a well functioning visual system, since up to 80% of our learning in school occurs through vision.
A common belief is that if you are able to see clearly then everything must be working as intended. This could not be further from the truth. While clear vision is definitely required for learning, it is not the only variable in play. A child can have perfectly clear vision and still have severe functional deficits. Therefore, a child’s eyes must be thoroughly examined in order to rule out any problems in the visual system, which includes: eye teaming problems (such as an eye turn), focusing issues (which can lead to an inability to perform sustained nearwork), or perceptual issues (deficiencies in how the brain takes the information it receives and processes it). If any of these issues are present your child will be at a disadvantage in school and learning can be affected. Imagine a race car trying to compete with only three wheels – it could probably still get around the track but it won’t be easy, and it definitely won’t be fast!
In an attempt to detect these problems schools and pediatrician’s offices offer vision screenings, which are meant to rapidly check a large number of children for “hard to miss” vision problems. Schools often test over 100 children a day – I once did screenings for the Santa Maria school district and we screened over 300 children per day. Due to the sheer number of children that need to be screened at these events the testing is often whittled down to the bare bones – namely checking how well a child can read far away and up close, which does little to check for the eye teaming issues, focusing issues and perceptual issues that I mentioned earlier. For this reason close to 50% of vision related learning problems can go undetected by vision screenings. Additionally, studies have found that between 40-67% of children that fail a vision screening do not receive the recommended follow up care from an eye doctor and that 50% of parents are not even aware their child failed a vision screening to begin with.
Learning and reading are complicated processes with many moving parts. Even for children that are doing adequately in school there can be improvements in performance when a child is given all the tools they need to perform at their best. Having a complete eye exam performed by your optometrist should be on your list of things to do to help make sure your child is ready for school. A carpenter may be able to fix your clogged drain but you would most likely hire someone trained with the skills to get the job done right the first time. The same is true for the eyes. Schedule your children to get an eye exam and start the school year off right!
-Dean Amundsen, O.D.