As with all aspects of your child’s development, eyesight is an area which should be monitored and treated if necessary. We have found that pre–school eye examinations can catch issues early on. The earlier they are caught, the better the treatment we can offer, and the better quality of life for your child.
School vision
I am a fully qualified optician with a further diploma in School Vision practice. I specialise in testing children with reading difficulties. I am able to offer colour overlay assessment and full school vision assessments. Up to half the population is affected by reading difficulties in some way and Optometric intervention can have a dramatic positive effect on children’s’ academic achievement.
"I firmly believe that any child who has a reading problem should first have full NHS eye examination"
A school vision assessment is important to make sure that any visual problems are corrected particularly when reading. Research has shown that up to 60% of 11 year olds have visual problems when reading, which may be liked to dyslexia. This means that some very bright children may be underachieving whilst over less academic children are at risk of being completely left behind at school.
Possible Symptoms
- Text is blurred
- Text is distorted
- Words appear to move about
- Text appears to shimmer
- Pages seem too bright in places or all over
- Words fade and then reappear
- Illusions of colour may be seen within the text
Possible Signs
- Avoids reading
- Finds it hard to concentrate
- Finds reading frustrating
- Has difficulty following sentences
- Loses their place easily
- Complains that reading makes their eyes sore or tired
- Gets headaches and eye strain
- Tires quickly
- Finds written passages hard to understand
- Has to re-read a passage several times
The school vision assessment
The first assessment takes about an hour and will assess the following:-
- Whether one eye is dominant
- The ability to track along a line of text
- Rate of character recognition
- How well the eyes work together as a pair
- How well the eyes focus for reading
- The colour preference and light sensitivity
- Where there is any signs of visual stress and pattern glare
Outline of costs involved
- Initial assessment (about 1 hour) £100
- Follow up appointments (30 mins) £60. Frequency depends on changes to the visual development
- At each appointment you may also need to purchase glasses, as the prescription is likely to change
- Colour overlay assessment (30 mins) £60
- Colour overlay (each £7)