Vision screening for kids An evaluation of your child's eyes should occur at all well child visits, even as an infant.
Routine vision screening is important, because many abnormalities are treatable if discovered early, and untreated, can lead to vision loss and blindness. Among the vision problems that your Pediatrician will evaluate your child for include:
* strabismus - a misalignment of the two eyes, affecting about 4% of children. Strabismus is usually described by the direction of misalignment, which can be outward (exotropia), inward (esotropia), upward (hypertropia) or downward (hyotropia). A child may also have a phoria, with eye deviation only when one of the eyes is covered or when he is tired or sick.
* amblyopia - reduced vision in an eye, which can be secondary to strabismus, anisometropia (unequal refractive errors in both eyes, for example, if one eye is more farsighted than the other eye), congenital cataracts, etc.
* refractive errors - such as myopia (nearsightedness) and hypermetropia (farsightedness).
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