It’s never too early to bring your child in for their first eye examination with an eye doctor. Although most parents wait until their child tells them they can’t see the classroom board or can’t focus while reading, children should come in for an eye exam even before they begin school. Children oftentimes find it challenging to properly communicate and describe what they are struggling with visually. This can manifest itself in other behaviors such as squinting, turning their head at an angle to view things, headaches, closing one eye, or even eye rubbing. In other cases, the child may not notice anything is wrong at all. Regardless, it is advised to have a routine eye examination between 6 months to 1 year old and repeated again before starting kindergarten.
During the exam, we will measure the child’s vision, assess the need for glasses, evaluate the child’s binocular eye coordination and motility, and perform an ocular health evaluation. It is important the eyecare provider does a comprehensive evaluation to rule out the risk for amblyopia, which is a visual condition in which one eye or both eyes are unable to develop normal vision usually from a “lazy eye” or from the need for a high glasses prescription. In most cases, this can be corrected for with full time glasses wear if caught early enough.
Whether a child is symptomatic for visual issues or not, it is important to come in for an initial eye exam no matter how young they might be. Make now an appointment with our eye doctor in NY and make your child enjoy good health.
