Vision Check-Up Opens Eyes to Learning Success

If your child is having unusual difficulties at school this year, you should consider a vision check. One in four children have an undiagnosed vision problem that can interfere with learning and lead to other academic challenges. Now is the time to give students a clear vision for their future.

This year alone, 10 million children will return to school with a vision problem that could interfere with their learning ability, contribute to disciplinary problems and put them at risk for permanent vision loss, according to the College of Optometrists in Vision Development (COVD).

The group also warns that when vision problems go undetected, students have trouble reading and doing schoolwork, and they often display fatigue, fidgeting, and frustration in the classroom.

A full 70 percent of school-age children who have a learning disability in reading have some sort of visual problem, according to COVD.

Early diagnosis and treatment of children's vision problems is a necessary component to school readiness and academic learning, according to the National Parent Teacher Association. Comprehensive eye and vision examinations are important for all children entering school and regularly throughout their school-aged years to ensure healthy eyes and adequate visual skills essential for successful academic achievement, according to the association.

There is a critical link between vision and learning so the experts at HealthSaver and the COVD have developed a checklist for common signs and symptoms of vision problems that may indicate the need for a comprehensive vision exam:

Physical signs or symptoms:

• Frequent headaches or eye strain
• Blurring of distance or near vision, particularly after reading or other close work
• Avoidance of close work or other visually demanding tasks
• Poor judgment of depth
• Turning of an eye in or out, up or down
• Double vision
• Poor hand-eye coordination
• Difficulty following a moving target
• Dizziness or motion sickness

• Poor reading comprehension
• Difficulty copying from one place to another
• Loss of place, repetition, and/or omission of words while reading
• Difficulty changing focus from distance to near and back
• Poor posture when reading or writing
• Poor handwriting
• Can respond orally but can't get the same information down on paper
• Letter and word reversals
• Difficulty judging sizes and shapes