Vision and your children.

Vision problems can cause a magnitude of problems for our children; it is sometimes the case that when children gets labeled disruptive or learning disabled they are actually having problems with their vision. Like all skills children learn, vision can be trained and advanced through toys and games.  It is estimated that 10 million children fail in school due to mis-diagnosed vision problems.

If you think there is any chance your child has a vision problem consult a trained pediatric optometrist. The optometrist will give careful consideration to your child’s emerging visual abilities. In the event that they evaluate your child’s vision as significantly different from their peer group, your optometrist will guide you through further testing and examinations and develop a plan on how best to proceed from the initial examination.

All children are recommended to see a vision specialist at 6 months, 2.5 years, beginning kindergarten and every year thereafter.  The Optometric Extension Program Foundation Inc. (OEP)is a non profit foundation for education and research in vision, and recommends the following: 

Vision tracking goes further than just testing what the eye is seeing. It also incorporates general motor and bilateral development. After all a child who can not see properly will likely have cordination issues as well, including problems with both fine and gross motor skills. The idea is to increase a child’s vision success by continually challenging both the visual and motor skill combinations as they develop. Starting from as young as a new-born infant, you can work with your babys visual skills. For a child 0-3 playfully move your baby’s arms and legs, separately at first, and then in various combinations. Raise and lower your child while you gaze in each other’s eyes.

Play with your baby every single chance you get, bounce them on your knee and enjoy a gentle massage with baby lotion to keep both a close connection with your baby and also to get familiar with how they move and how their bodies feel.

To encourage visual focusing place a picture of a face 20-40 cms from the baby’s eyes. The face should be approximately 18 cms in diameter and the eyes in the face should be about 2 cms in diameter. Place the face on one side of the bassinet and change sides regularly until the age of about two months. Then hang it from the middle of the bassinet. Make sure you place the face so that the baby has the opportunity of looking towards each side of their body. Provide multi-colored objects for your baby to look at.

Place them in various positions within baby’s view, giving opportunities to look in different directions. Make sure your baby doesn’t face one side of the bassinet or a wall, using one eye all the time. Change the position of your baby, or that of the bassinet occasionally.

Between 4 and 8 months keep up with training your baby’s vision progress. For general motor and bilateral development place a kickable mobile at the end of the bassinet. Also, place a plastic, non-sharp, mirror in a place where your baby will catch a view of themselves. Roll a ball backwards and forwards to your child, play games like peek-a-boo and hide a rattle under blankets and make it reappear. This is fun for your baby and good for their visual development at the same time.

Between 9-18 months play games such as creeping through, around, over and under a family furniture obstacle course, this will keep the general motor skills and bilateral development on track. Encourage them to make small jumps and hops over very low objects. Enjoy playing games like pat-a-cake and other simple clapping games, and make it easy for your child to develop his/her gross motor skills by climbing objects such as stairs and steps.

Encourage eye-hand coordination by playing with stacking cups, blocks and other objects that stack, or fit inside each other, including simple puzzles.

As your child reaches pre-school age start making regular appointments with a vision specialist once a year. Vision problems caught at an early age, like most developmental issues, can sometimes be resolved, even without surgery.

Make an adjustment: Stay healthy ~ Be happy.
Call Dr. Paul or Dr. Susan at 303.674.1500 or email office@fontanachiro.com

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