The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that more than 600,000 children and teens are blind or have a vision disorder. A recent opinion article published on JAMA Network notes that a large number of these children could be helped simply with glasses, but because of high costs and lack of insurance coverage, many are not getting them.
Yet the National Survey of Children’s Health, funded by the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration, found that in 2016-2017 a quarter of children were not regularly screened for vision problems.
And a large majority of those vision impairments could be treated or cured if caught early, Connolly said.
“Screenings are important for kids because kids don’t realize what’s abnormal,” Connolly said. “They don’t know what their peers around them — or even their parents — are seeing to realize their experience is different.”
Optometrists, physicians and school nurses are concerned not only about children’s visual acuity but also their ability to learn and overall quality of life. Both are strongly linked to vision.
“There seems to be an assumption that maybe if kids can’t see, they’ll just tell somebody — that the problems will sort of come forward on their own and that they don’t need to be found,” said Kelly Hardy, senior managing director of health and research for a California-based child advocacy group, Children Now. But that’s not the case most of the time because children aren’t the best advocates for their own vision problems.
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