Visual Impairments Affect Preschool Children

Sight impairments affect one in every 20 children in pre-school period and one in every 4 children in school age...

The sense of sight begins in the 3-4 months after birth and is completed around 7-10 years of age.

Some eye diseases may go unrecognised and cause permanent vision damage later in life, especially since young children cannot clearly describe their complaints.

Parents are advised to be alert to some of the symptoms and take their children for an eye examination...

If we talk about the symptoms;
Are the eyes parallel to each other in direct gaze, or does one eye look straight while the other eye shifts inward, outward, downward or upward? Turning or tilting the head in a certain direction while watching TV or reading, closing one eye, blinking, squinting, rubbing, writing crookedly, skipping rows, looking closely, headache, frequent tripping and falling should lead the family to suspicion in terms of eyesight.

These symptoms may occur as a result of visual defects such as myopia, hyperopia, astigmatism (conditions requiring the use of spectacles) or as a result of lazy eye, strabismus, congenital or developmental cataracts, hereditary corneal and retinal diseases.

These diseases may not always show the symptoms mentioned above. Hidden strabismus, lazy eye, developmental cataracts, corneal degenerative diseases, keratoconus, some hereditary retinal diseases may not give a warning symptom to the family. These diseases, which may go unnoticed and can only be diagnosed after a detailed eye examination, can be treated without causing permanent damage.

In the absence of any complaints, we strongly recommend a medical examination in the first year of life (6-8 months), 18 months and 3 years of age, 5 years of age, and especially when starting school, at the age of 7-8 years before school.

Especially before the opening of schools, let's not neglect the eye examination of our children without any complaints.

Prepared by the Editorial Board of Eye Foundation Hospitals.