Do My Children Need Eye Exams?
Regular eye exams are vital for maintaining strong vision and ocular health, regardless of age. Children’s eye exams are the best way to identify eye diseases and vision problems early on in your child’s life, giving you and your eye doctor a chance to correct them before they can have severe consequences.
Without eye exams, children with vision problems may be misdiagnosed with behavioral conditions. Children who have had vision problems since they were born may not even know their eyesight isn’t normal, so eye exams are critical for helping them (and their parents) learn about their needs.
Regular eye exams can also prevent vision problems from affecting your child’s school performance since 80% of all childhood learning is visual. The Canadian College of Optometrists recommends that children have their first annual eye exam between 6 to 9 months (although parents with concerns about their child’s vision are encouraged to bring them in sooner).
When you bring your child in for an exam at our practice, we’ll ask questions and perform tests to identify potential ocular health risks or vision problems. Then we’ll help you decide on a course of action to treat or manage any conditions we find.
What Happens During My Child’s Eye Exam?
We perform the following steps during every children’s eye exam:
- We ask questions about their medical history and family medical history to determine their risk for numerous health and vision problems.
- We test for visual acuity, refraction, binocular vision, and general eye health.
- We make recommendations and write the necessary prescriptions if your child needs vision correction devices or medication.
- We help educate you and your child about how to maintain their ocular health.
- We’ll discuss any other concerns that you or your child have regarding their ocular health.
When you bring your child to their eye exam, don’t forget their current glasses or contact lenses! It’s much easier for us to provide new versions of these items (if necessary) when we have the originals in front of us.
