Childrens Vision
Your eye care professional checks every child to see if their eyes are seeing equally clear, sitting straight, and working together. Based on this your eye care professional will treat your child in a variety of ways including glasses, patching, vision therapy, and just waiting to see what happens depending on the condition and severity. A doctor will consider the child’s age, symptoms, visual findings and more when prescribing treatment. Below is just some of the information that a doctor considers before prescribing treatment.
(+) Prescription: A Hyperopic (+) Rx can be given for a variety of reasons. This information is just a sliver of how a doctor thinks when giving a (+) Rx. If the RX is given for reading, the child usually has a problem focusing up close. If it is given for full time it may be given for a variety of reasons. If the child is seeing worse out of one eye than the other, these glasses are given to make the bad eye see clearer, work harder, and develop, think of use it or lose it. The brain needs a clear image to develop an area for each eye, if the brain does not develop this area when young the child may grow up always having vision worse in one eye even with spectacle correction. The child may not like to wear the glasses because they can compensate by focusing and using the good eye, but it is important that the child wear his glasses as indicated by his Eye Care Professional. In this case the eye care professional may see your child frequently to make sure the vision is improving in the bad eye and that both eyes are working together and sitting straight. Sometimes it is discovered by the doctor after using focus breaking eye drops there is a high prescription that does not show up before using the drops. This is called Latent Hyperopia. In latent hyperopia the child may have symptoms including headaches, tired eyes, an eye turn, or double vision. These glasses are used for relieving the symptoms more than for clearing up the image. The child may have these symptoms because he is constantly focusing to have a clear image and the glasses allow him to relax his focus. Sometimes if the prescription is a high + (about +3.00 and higher) it is given because the child cannot compensate the prescription by focusing because it the Rx is too high. In this situation the child usually sees clearer with the glasses than without so compliance is less of an issue. If a child has an Eye Turn where the eye turns in toward the nose a (+) prescription may be given. This is because when a child focuses up close (or if there is a high (+) prescription the child focuses in distance viewing and will focus even more at near viewing), the eyes may turn in also. Sometimes the child will lose control and one eye will drift in. To avoid this, a (+) Rx may be given to relax the focus, therefore decreasing the chances of an eye turning in. If this does not work or if the eye turn is severe, prism or vision therapy may be given.
(-) Prescription: A myopic or near-sighted (-) Rx may be given for a few reasons, usually because the child cannot see clearly in the distance. These types of prescriptions tend to increase as the child ages due to lengthening of the eyeball. There is usually nothing you can do about it although there are theories to slow rapidly increasing prescriptions such as bifocals glasses. Less commonly myopic prescriptions may be given for an Outward Eye Turn. The reason for this is because when a child has to focus more with an overcorrected (-) Rx causing the eyes to turn in more since this is a linked system. If this does not work prism or vision therapy may be given.
Astigmatism: Regular Astigmatism occurs when the cornea or the front of the eye is not perfectly round resulting in 2 or more prescriptions for one eye. This is corrected with an astigmatic prescription where the spectacles have 2 powers in different meridians to match the corneas meridians.
Lazy Eye: Lazy eye may refer to either an eye turn (Strabismus) or it may refer to an eye that cannot see 20/20 with spectacle correction (Amblyopia). Treatment includes spectacle wear, prism, vision therapy and patching.
Treatment:
Amblyopic Spectacle Correction: Studies have shown that in certain cases of amblyopia that spectacle correction alone can improve vision. Sometimes spectacle correction may be enhanced with patching. The spectacles must be worn as directed by the Eye Care Professional and may improve vision in the amblyopic eye by increasing the range of spatial frequency the retina views.
Patching: Patching is given to make the worse seeing amblyopic eye (worse even with glasses) work harder so it may develop into a well seeing eye with and sometimes without glasses. When one eye does not see as well as the other eye the child may have poor depth perception and contrast sensitivity. One eye may not see as well from not being used from an eye turn, large differences in prescription between the 2 eyes, or occlusion from scars or cataracts. The younger the child starts patching the better the results since the brain is still developing. A 5 year olds vision will improve much faster and to a greater extent than a 15 year old when patching. The reason the worse seeing eye cannot see clearly is a brain phenomenon. If the brain is not getting a clear image from the bad eye it may not develop, so when an untreated child wears glasses and the eye receives a clear image, the brain does not perceive the clear image because the brain has not developed well for that eye. As the worse seeing eye works harder while the good eye is being patched, the brain is forced to develop an area for that eye. This allows vision to slowly get better over time in the bad eye. If this area of the brain is not developed at a young age, when the child becomes an adult the worse seeing eye may never see as well as the better seeing eye since the brain is less plastic in adult life. This is why patching is important! When patching it is important that the child is doing something active such as reading, playing, or drawing, NOT Television. You can read more about patching options Here.
Prism- Prism is used to treat conditions such as eye turns which cause double vision. Prism shifts the image so they eye can rest in a more natural position relieving strain and double vision.
Vision Therapy- Vision therapy uses different exercises and techniques to improve eye movements, visual processing and is used to treat and reduce symptoms from eye tracking and reading issues, eye turns, lazy eye, and for sports vision training. Vision Therapy is usually not covered by insurance and usually requires 10-15 visits more or less depending on the severity and number of issues needing to be treated. For more information on Vision Therapy click Here.
(+) Prescription: A Hyperopic (+) Rx can be given for a variety of reasons. This information is just a sliver of how a doctor thinks when giving a (+) Rx. If the RX is given for reading, the child usually has a problem focusing up close. If it is given for full time it may be given for a variety of reasons. If the child is seeing worse out of one eye than the other, these glasses are given to make the bad eye see clearer, work harder, and develop, think of use it or lose it. The brain needs a clear image to develop an area for each eye, if the brain does not develop this area when young the child may grow up always having vision worse in one eye even with spectacle correction. The child may not like to wear the glasses because they can compensate by focusing and using the good eye, but it is important that the child wear his glasses as indicated by his Eye Care Professional. In this case the eye care professional may see your child frequently to make sure the vision is improving in the bad eye and that both eyes are working together and sitting straight. Sometimes it is discovered by the doctor after using focus breaking eye drops there is a high prescription that does not show up before using the drops. This is called Latent Hyperopia. In latent hyperopia the child may have symptoms including headaches, tired eyes, an eye turn, or double vision. These glasses are used for relieving the symptoms more than for clearing up the image. The child may have these symptoms because he is constantly focusing to have a clear image and the glasses allow him to relax his focus. Sometimes if the prescription is a high + (about +3.00 and higher) it is given because the child cannot compensate the prescription by focusing because it the Rx is too high. In this situation the child usually sees clearer with the glasses than without so compliance is less of an issue. If a child has an Eye Turn where the eye turns in toward the nose a (+) prescription may be given. This is because when a child focuses up close (or if there is a high (+) prescription the child focuses in distance viewing and will focus even more at near viewing), the eyes may turn in also. Sometimes the child will lose control and one eye will drift in. To avoid this, a (+) Rx may be given to relax the focus, therefore decreasing the chances of an eye turning in. If this does not work or if the eye turn is severe, prism or vision therapy may be given.
(-) Prescription: A myopic or near-sighted (-) Rx may be given for a few reasons, usually because the child cannot see clearly in the distance. These types of prescriptions tend to increase as the child ages due to lengthening of the eyeball. There is usually nothing you can do about it although there are theories to slow rapidly increasing prescriptions such as bifocals glasses. Less commonly myopic prescriptions may be given for an Outward Eye Turn. The reason for this is because when a child has to focus more with an overcorrected (-) Rx causing the eyes to turn in more since this is a linked system. If this does not work prism or vision therapy may be given.
Astigmatism: Regular Astigmatism occurs when the cornea or the front of the eye is not perfectly round resulting in 2 or more prescriptions for one eye. This is corrected with an astigmatic prescription where the spectacles have 2 powers in different meridians to match the corneas meridians.
Lazy Eye: Lazy eye may refer to either an eye turn (Strabismus) or it may refer to an eye that cannot see 20/20 with spectacle correction (Amblyopia). Treatment includes spectacle wear, prism, vision therapy and patching.
Treatment:
Amblyopic Spectacle Correction: Studies have shown that in certain cases of amblyopia that spectacle correction alone can improve vision. Sometimes spectacle correction may be enhanced with patching. The spectacles must be worn as directed by the Eye Care Professional and may improve vision in the amblyopic eye by increasing the range of spatial frequency the retina views.
Patching: Patching is given to make the worse seeing amblyopic eye (worse even with glasses) work harder so it may develop into a well seeing eye with and sometimes without glasses. When one eye does not see as well as the other eye the child may have poor depth perception and contrast sensitivity. One eye may not see as well from not being used from an eye turn, large differences in prescription between the 2 eyes, or occlusion from scars or cataracts. The younger the child starts patching the better the results since the brain is still developing. A 5 year olds vision will improve much faster and to a greater extent than a 15 year old when patching. The reason the worse seeing eye cannot see clearly is a brain phenomenon. If the brain is not getting a clear image from the bad eye it may not develop, so when an untreated child wears glasses and the eye receives a clear image, the brain does not perceive the clear image because the brain has not developed well for that eye. As the worse seeing eye works harder while the good eye is being patched, the brain is forced to develop an area for that eye. This allows vision to slowly get better over time in the bad eye. If this area of the brain is not developed at a young age, when the child becomes an adult the worse seeing eye may never see as well as the better seeing eye since the brain is less plastic in adult life. This is why patching is important! When patching it is important that the child is doing something active such as reading, playing, or drawing, NOT Television. You can read more about patching options Here.
Prism- Prism is used to treat conditions such as eye turns which cause double vision. Prism shifts the image so they eye can rest in a more natural position relieving strain and double vision.
Vision Therapy- Vision therapy uses different exercises and techniques to improve eye movements, visual processing and is used to treat and reduce symptoms from eye tracking and reading issues, eye turns, lazy eye, and for sports vision training. Vision Therapy is usually not covered by insurance and usually requires 10-15 visits more or less depending on the severity and number of issues needing to be treated. For more information on Vision Therapy click Here.