Children’s Eye Exams vs. In-School Vision Screening

Every parent wants their child to be healthy, happy and able to fulfil their maximum potential in life – physically, socially and academically. One of the best ways of making this possible is to ensure that they have the best possible eyesight. Just like us, our children rely on their vision for every activity they do from the moment they wake up until the moment they fall asleep again. Without clear vision, their quality of life could be considerably compromised. Fortunately, identifying a vision problem early could make a huge difference to your child’s life.  

Your child’s school may offer something called a vison screening shortly after they start the first semester of a new grade. However, these vision screenings are very basic assessments and don’t offer anywhere near the same depth of information as a comprehensive pediatric eye test. Here’s what you need to know about children eye exams vs in-school vision screening.

What Is A In School Vision Screening?

In-school vision screenings are a very simple but useful tool for detecting basic vision problems. Carried out in your child’s school, they can detect obvious problems like myopia (nearsightedness) or moderate to severe amblyopia (lazy eye). However, they aren’t able to detect the majority of vision problems that could affect your child’s ability to learn at school. However, there are some issues with this type of screening.

• The testing is usually done in a classroom or spare room that doesn’t have the correct lighting for testing. The tests may also be carried out at non-standardized distances. Both of these can affect the accuracy of the results.     

• There is usually a limited amount of equipment used in testing. For example, a Snellen chart (the chart with lots of letters of different sizes on) is the main tool associated with vision testing, but this doesn’t take into account the near vision acuity needed for reading and writing. It also doesn’t check how well your eyes work together or how well they can track an object.   

• The people performing in-school vision testing aren’t usually trained and experienced eyecare professionals. In many instances, they are school nurses, teachers or even volunteers. This means that they may not conduct the tests or interpret the results as accurately as a trained optician or optometrist.

What Is A Children's Eye Exam?

Also known as a pediatric eye exam, a children’s eye exam is a comprehensive assessment that looks at all aspects of your child’s eye condition and health, as well as their vision. This means that they usually involve a variety of different tests including:

• Visual acuity

• Lazy eye

• Eye tracking

• Convergence

• Color vision

In addition, your eye doctor will look at images of the various structures inside your child’s eyes to assess their health. This enables any eye health issues, such as conjunctivitis or glaucoma, or any other problems to be detected and treated early, before they impact your child’s health.

If your child is found to have a refractive eye condition, such as nearsightedness, farsightedness or astigmatism, then your eye doctor will be able to provide a prescription and recommend the most suitable glasses to correct their vision. And if your child’s visual skills need to be worked on, they can recommend the correct treatment to help strengthen those which are lacking.

Clearly, in-school vision screening doesn’t go into the same detail as comprehensive children’s eye exams. Book your child’s back to school vision test with us today by contacting our friendly and experienced pediatric eyecare experts at 09-884-0034.