Doctors stress importance of eye exams before back to school

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Many kids are visual learners, needing to see something to process and understand it. 

With the first day of school on Aug. 12, pediatricians and eye doctors recommend getting kids’ eyes checked. 

“Making sure your child can see in the classroom has a huge impact on their learning, it can have a huge impact on behavior,” said Dr. Rachel Dawkins, Pediatrician, Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital.

The reality is most vision problems can be picked up by a basic screening at the pediatrician’s office. 

“So it is really important. It has a huge impact on school attentiveness and cooperation, participation,” said Dr. Derek Hess, Pediatric Ophthalmologist, Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital.

If a vision screening test is failed, kids then get referred to ophthalmologists or optometrists. 

“A problem that goes undetected,” said Hess. “It can really cause problems essentially for the rest of your life. So there’s a developmental window in childhood where your vision is developing. And beyond that window, if you haven’t sort of taken care of that problem, it can lead to a permanent decline in vision one way or another.”

Hess said the window to start checking for serious problems is around 4 to 5 years old.

“They’re just old enough to report to you what their subjective vision is probably, 3 or 4-year-olds could as well. But by the time you’re 5, you’re really going to read the alphabet and cooperate properly. And there’s still plenty of time within that window to fix things that, you know, you need to kind of address earlier,” said Dr. Hess. 

Most screenings check for refractive errors and misalignment of the eyes.