Paediatric Optometry
Our optometrists at Woonona Eyecare love children and have a vast depth of experience from membership with The Australian College of Behavioural Optometrists (ACBO) to being parents to children themselves. They understand the importance of great vision and healthy eyes in a child’s development, learning and wellbeing.
The majority of visual development occurs before age 6. If this process is interfered with due to undetected prescriptions, eye turns or eye diseases, vision may not develop correctly. Therefore it is recommended to have your infant’s eyes tested if you notice any symptoms.
What are common symptoms?
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Reports of difficulty seeing the board
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Blurred or fluctuating near vision
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Headaches
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Eye strain - excessive soreness/tiredness
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Eye rubbing
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Excessive blinking
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Double vision
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Eye turn/lazy eye
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Reduced school and learning performance
Symptoms of visual difficulties in children are often not obvious. However, repeated patterns or behaviours can often be observed and are important to take note of.
Why is a child's vision important?
We rely on our vision so heavily to interpret and interact with the world around us. Children rely on good vision to develop accurate gross and fine motor skills and to learn to read and write fluently amongst so many other things.
As children begin school, their vision has to adjust to new challenges of learning to read and copy from the board and maintain visual concentration. This may result in new difficulties such as headaches or a child may be slower than peers to develop the same skills. Therefore, it is recommended that before starting school, an eye test is performed to detect any eye condition that may cause these difficulties.
As they continue through school, the visual demands increase and new difficulties may be observed. Regular eye testing every 1-2 year (or as your optometrist recommends) will help detect these before they negatively impact learning.