Back to school rituals and getting children prepared for the school year provides a good time for the Georgia Department of Human Resources, Division of Public Health to remind parents that children's eyes need to be examined regularly. The health of eyes and good vision are important to the development of healthy children. Your child could be having eye problems, or may not be able to see well. Without treatment, vision problems can affect a child's ability to learn.


"Vision screening and documentation of that screening is required for all children entering Georgia's public schools for the first time," said Stuart Brown, M.D., director of the Division of Public Health. "Approximately 100,000 children beginning school for the first time, plus an additional 20,000 transfer students from out-of-state, at various academic levels are screened each year in collaboration with local health departments," said Brown.

Problems that can be detected and treated early with regular eye examinations include amblyopia or lazy eye. If untreated, it can cause irreversible visual loss in the affected eye. Strabismus or misalignments of the eyes are common problems. With early detection, patching the properly aligned eye, forcing the misaligned one to work, can restore vision. Refractive errors include nearsightedness, farsightedness and astigmatism, which are usually corrected with glasses.

Public health provides technical support services to school nurses, public health nurses, hospital staff and some private agencies to upgrade skills in screening procedures. Educational programs are customized and are provided to enable those serving children to properly screen and refer for sensory disorders. Hearing and vision screening services are offered primarily by local (county) public health departments, local schools, Head Start programs, in day care centers, and at health fairs.

Parents need to remember that children need routine eye exams at the following stages in a child’s development. Newborns should be checked for general eye health by a pediatrician or family physician in the hospital nursery. In the first year of life, all infants should be routinely screened for eye health during checkups with their doctors. Around age 3½, kids should undergo eye health screenings and visual acuity tests (or tests that measure sharpness of vision) with their doctors. Around age 5, kids should have their vision and eye alignment evaluated by their doctors. An eye doctor should examine those who fail either test. After age 5, further routine screenings should be done at school or the doctor's office, or after the appearance of symptoms such as squinting or frequent headaches. A teacher will oftentimes realize the child isn't seeing well in class. Kids who wear prescription glasses or contacts should have annual checkups to screen for vision changes.

Signs that a child may have vision problems include constant eye rubbing, extreme light sensitivity, poor visual tracking, and continuing redness or tearing. Once a child reaches school age, poor vision contributes to difficulty reading, an inability to see objects at a distance or on the blackboard, squinting, and even sitting too close to the television.