Children & adults
Vision problems rarely announce themselves. That's exactly why they get missed.
Children
One in four school-aged children has an undiagnosed vision problem that interferes with learning. The Vision Council of America
Roughly 80% of what a child learns in their first eight years comes through vision. Children's eyes are almost fully developed by age nine, and vision can be aided or trained as early as six months.
When vision problems go undetected, a child may struggle to read or to identify letters, numbers, and symbols — the fundamentals of an education. Treatable problems too often get children labeled as "slow," when the real issue could have been caught before the eye finished developing.
Your child may seem to see perfectly well, but you can't be certain without a professional exam. School vision screenings detect only 20 to 30 percent of eye problems.
Schedule a professional eye exam every year, beginning at age three.
Adults
As adults, our hand-eye coordination is essential to everyday life — driving, reading, athletics, work. And yet most of us take our vision for granted.
Plenty of things wear on it: poor lighting, UV exposure, workplace hazards, and hours in front of a screen. The Vision Council of America estimates that more than 10 million Americans experience serious vision and health problems related to computer use.
Annual eye exams help detect and monitor the cumulative effects of eye strain, poor lighting, and hereditary conditions. They can also surface serious medical conditions — high blood pressure and diabetes among them — that show up in the eye first.