7 signs your child may need glasses

Eighty percent of our learning, cognitive and social abilities are facilitated by vision – here’s why It is extremely important to understand whether children may have visual difficulties. But what are the signs that reveal whether a child really needs to wear glasses? A few days ago, an English company specializing in the production of glasses (Specasavers) published research on 1000 individuals which collects parents’ concerns regarding their children’s vision, asking an optometrist to highlight which are the warning signs that should suggest parents to take their children for an eye exam.

“Many parents assume that because their children show no signs of vision problems that they don’t need to have an eye test. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Ensuring that our child is subjected to regular eye exams from an early age it is very important for several reasons,” explains the optometrist Giles Edmondsdirector of clinical services at Specsavers.

• Rubbing of the eyes. “Rubbing your eyes is a sign of eye strain at any age,” explains the optometrist. Noticing this gesture in children while they look at an object may indicate “eye strain, probably due to vision problems that have not yet been corrected”.
• Difficulty in reading. Reading at a level below that expected for age, losing track, using the finger as a guide, repeating sentences: these and other signs, for Edmonds, “can indicate various vision problems in children”.
• Eye strain. “Straining your eyes, closing one, holding objects too close or far away”: these instinctive gestures can cause eye strain. Which can become problematic: if a child struggles to see on the blackboard, in addition to visual discomfort, he or she can experience frustration and disturb lessons.
• Heachache. According to the expert, sometimes recurring headaches during reading can result from “the fatigue of the eye muscles in focusing on nearby objects for a long time”. Squinting also tires the muscles around the eyes, causing migraines.
• Abnormal posture. Sitting too close to the TV and holding books in the palm of your hand, according to Edmonds, could be a sign of “difficulty focusing on details” and involves excessive eye strain. Not only that: tilting or rotating your head to read also signals an attempt to “compensate for focusing problems”.
• Sit in the front row. Edmonds then points out that “always sit in the front to have a good view of the blackboard it could be a further sign that our son is struggling with his vision.”
• Turn a blind eye. Last but not least“if children close one eye while completing homework, they may be doing so to favor the stronger eye and this could highlight an uncorrected vision problem,” the optometrist points out.