Conference moira::parenting_v3

    The last time I had my eyes examined my optometrist had a machine that
    you look into and it gave you the prescription.  He had only had it a
    few weeks at the time, so he was still double checking it.  He then
    gave me a regular exam and the two results matched.  

    Based on a sample of one family :-) I always thought nearsightedness
    was hereditary also.  Both my parents wear glasses, I got them at age
    7, and my brother and sister a bit later.  My husband also has been
    wearing glasses since 2nd grade also, so we figure Marc is guaranteed
    to need glasses at some point.

    
    According to my optometrist who also teaches in a college in Boston,
    near-sightedness is hereditary and the trait is dominant (it takes
    only one near-sighted parent to propagate the trait!). My mother
    is near-sighted, both my brother and I have bad eyes. My sister
    is near-sighted in one eye. My father has perfect vision.
    
    As people age, their eye muscles deterioriate and causes
    far-sightedness. That's why a lot of elder folks need reading glasses.
    
    Eye examinations are done starting age 4 at pediatricains and
    they are also done as part of kindergarten screening.
    
    I do expect my kid to be near-sighted at some point in time.
    She is 5 and has perfect vision, so far. I have been testing her
    by saying, "See that thing in the sky? Is it a helicopter  or a bird?
    Is that a big plane or a little one? or do you see that see up there?"
    
    Eva.

	Myopia (near-sightedness) is hereditary.  I don't recall whether or not 
Hyperopia (far-sightedness) or Astigmatism are.  

	I remember a study a few years ago that linked myopia with the genetic
factors that govern intelligence.  Thus the stereotype of the smart kid 
who wears glasses...

Tracey 
(Who is legally blind without her glasses. :-) )

    Another small point...  my daugther complained of sore eyes and/or
    headache... it was very occasional and started when she was somewhere
    around three, three and a half...  She was in pre-school so I asked the
    teachers - no one observed anything abnormal...  I began
    listening/watching her more closely - complaints were still spaced
    apart/random, but almost always at the end of the day and after
    watching cartoons on the TV...!!!  No one in my family has problem
    eyes, so I plucked up and got her an appointment.  Eye Doc. was really
    nice and reassured me with a "better safe than sorry" - it turned out
    my daugther is slightly far-sighted and wears glasses for close-up
    work.  All this to say, be observant and trust/believe your child's
    complaints (if any..!) - and check things out... for these matters I'm
    not sure it's ever too early, but sometimes it can be too late.
    
    D.

    >>At what age would you believe your kids if you asked if things
    >>looked blurry...?
    
    25!!  But I wouldn't believe her even then if she'd never been through
    a couple of diagnosis and prescription cycles.  Clay has it right - they
    don't know what things are _supposed_ to look like.  I got my first
    glasses when I was 9 1/2.  As I walked out of the opthalmologist's
    office, with glasses on for the first time, I was _astonished_ to be
    able to distinguish individual twigs on the tops of trees.  Yet if I'd
    been asked as I walked _into_ the doctor's office whether I could see
    the tops of trees, I would have said "of course."  They weren't
    INVISIBLE, and I had no fuzziness-scale to measure my own vision by. 
    (The tops of the trees are far away!  Of course they look fuzzy!)
    
    I think Eva has the right idea (fling-wing or feather-wing?).  Alex
    points out her clear superiority in visual acuity all too often ("Momm,
    look, there's a chipmunk on the stone wall!"  "uh-huh, yeah right, I'm
    sure there is..."  "Right THERE, he's eating an acorn!") and I'm fairly
    sure so far that she'll escape my severe myopia (20/800, would you
    believe).  It is hereditary, but myopia (and probably other sight
    dysfunctions) can result from high fevers, and I'm fairly sure that was
    the case with me.
    
    Leslie, whose contacts each weigh half a pound... 8'D

Odd as it sounds, a recent visit to the eye doctor turned up a factiod
that opthamologists would like to see children as early as six months
old come in for their first eye exam.  Mostly they want to head off
problems that might develop, but properly equipped offices can actually
diagnose accuity problems by shining lasers off the eye surface while
presenting the kid with objects at varying distances. (The shine
spotlights on things in a darkened room.)

The other bit of trivia is that far-sightedness as a result of age is
called presbyopia (old eyes.)  I found that out by being on the
receiving end of a diagnosis. ("But 37 isn't old....")
					>>>==>PStJTT

    Unfortunately, the early signs usually aren't anything as obvious
    as squinting or holding the book close -- our optometrist said
    that generally only people who already know how to read, then
    start developiong fuzzy vision, can figure out that bringing the
    page closer will bring letters into focus.
    
    Some of the signs he mentioned watching for in kids from about 2
    to about second grade were:
    
    * headaches, especially after watching TV or movies
    * irritability after watching TV or movies
    * lack of interest in activities that involve a lot of looking --
      like those games where you pick out hidden shapes in a picture
    * trouble learning to tell time
    * not seeming to realize that those letters on Sesame Street are
      what's printed on the page of his/her books
    * lack of interest in learning to read or count
    * difficulty concentrating and following directions
    
    Obviously there are MANY reasons other than poor vision for most
    of these behaviors, so it's usually a better-safe-than-sorry
    situation.  The new equipment does allow them to check the vision
    of very young children, so if you do suspect a problem, you can
    take the child in right away, before the perceptual problems
    convert to behavioral problems or a dislike of certain situations.
    
    --bonnie

There is definitely a hereditary trend for many eye conditions ... both short
and long sight, but there are definitely exceptions.  Far sightedness is
not uncommon in our family ... I am ... my brothers are normal and my sister
is short-sighted ... which is very uncommon ... which proves that these are
only tendencies not rules.

Unless there is a real problem showing early, like poor co-ordination and
difficluty walking, lack of interest in visual things, or crossed eyes, there
is no real need to thoroughly check eyes out until school age.  Especially up 
until age 5 and a little less so up to puberty, vision can change very quickly.
Your pediatrition or gp will do simpler checks from around 2-3 yrs old ...
again really only checking for obvious problems.

Stuart

    Age 4 is, indeed, a standard age for vision testing as part of
    routine physicals.  The reason is not difficulty in testing earlier,
    but the fact that testing at this age is pretty easy, and vision
    problems rarely develop until later.
    
    What gradually diminishes with age is the eyes' ability to focus
    through a wide range; pre-school kids rarely have this problem. 
    Nearsightedness needing correction (and less often, farsightedness)
    tends to emerge late in elementary school through high school.  The
    further narrowing of range often experienced in the 40s is not
    intrinsically farsightedness at all.  My uncorrected sight is still
    sharpest at 6", but now I need correction at 12", and variable
    correction to see from 6" to infinity.
    
    I think it would be hard for a parent to interperate an "E direction"
    test.  Intuition at the extremes is probably all you need.  Young kids
    (regardless of their ultimate genetic destiny) can generally see
    distant airplanes and birds better than their parents, as well as the
    fine anatomy of ants, and the tiny whatever-they-are's that you can't
    find after dropping them on the floor.  Knowing they can embarrass you
    at both extremes, be confident they can do so in between, as well.
    
    		- Bruce

	Whether or not your kid can tell you if their sight is blurry...

	During my first grade screening I tested 20/20 in both eyes.  At my 
second grade testing, I tested 20/40 in the left and 20/400 in the right.
Even though I knew what OK looked like, I didn't realize that my vision had 
changed, because it happened over the course of a year.  When I got my first 
glasses I almost couldn't walk!   The difference it made to my depth perception
was amazing!  My eyes continued to get worse gradually over the years.  They've
slowed down now. (At age 29 I can wear the same prescription for a couple of 
years before needing a minor change.) 

	So the kid can be articulate enough to tell you AND know what normal 
vision is and still not realize/tell you that there is a problem.  Mine was 
caught only by the routine screening.  My case was a bit unusual though becuase 
"good" eye was picking up the slack.  So unless I closed it, the "bad" did 
essentially no work.  (In fact, the disparity bewtween the eyes was so great 
that they thought I might have ambliopia (sp?).) 

	Re: Leslie and 20/800.  The last time I knew what my vision was in terms
of 20/* (about 10 years ago), it was 20/400 in the left 20/600 in the right.  
The left has almost caught up to tthe right eye now.  The last time I was in I 
asked the doctor what my vision was in terms of 20/*.  He said "When we get to 
where your vision is, we don't measure that way anymore." :-) 

Tracey

    re .5
    
    >As people age, their eye muscles deterioriate and causes
    >far-sightedness. That's why a lot of elder folks need reading glasses.
    
    Close, but not quite .... 
    
    As people age, the muscles are generally fine and still work well,
    (they get the best workout of any muscle except the heart :-)) but
    what happens is that the lens tissue becomes less supple and will
    not stretch the way it used to, to be able to adjust the lens
    thickness.  This problem ... presbyopia ... is also known as lack of
    accomodation.  (No room at the inn :-))
    
    Stuart

    I was born with a lazy eye and one brother was born very cross-eyed. 
    Lazy eye is just a mild form of cross-eyed and is _very_ hereditary.  My
    eye doctor told me that if I have a baby I must bring it in at 6 months
    for a check because of this.  My lazy eye was caught when I went to
    kindegarden.  I could see NOTHING out of my right eye.  I was also
    told that if the condition hadn't been caught when it was, I probably
    would have no sight in that eye today. I recently asked the doctor why 
    with correction I could not see perfect even thought my right eye isn't 
    that bad.  She explained that the eye isn't fully developed at birth.  
    It takes stimulation to finish developing and since I didn't use my 
    right eye, it wasn't stimulated and didn't develop.  With this knowledge, 
    even if I didn't have eye problems, I would take my baby in at 6 months 
    for peace of mind.

    re .15
    
    Welll .... not quite ... there was a long discussion about lazy eye,
    crossed eyes and amblyopia in Parenting_V2
    
    But put simply, crossed eyes tend to be hereditary, are more common
    in far-sighted people and are one of several causes of amblyopia
    the symptoms of which include the supression by the brain of the
    image from one of the eyes and hence the blindness you describe.
    
    The supression occurs because the brain is unable to co-ordinate the
    images it receives from each eye, so it rejects one image and
    hence the blindness.  Generally, the supressed image comes from an
    eye that cannot be focussed, or one whose image is laterally or
    vertically misplaced (a crossed eye).  A crossed eye will also
    sometimes happen when an image cannot be focussed properly, so the
    brain will move the eye into a position where the second image is
    totally wrong compared with the "seeing" eye so that it can be easily
    rejected.  Long term image supression often leads to blindness.
    
    Thus an eye that develops a cross for physical reasons due to the
    irregular muscle growth of the eyes suspension muscles for example
    will tend to become crossed for the optical reason as well.
    
    Most crosses are convergent, although you do sometimes see a
    divergent cross.
    
    Stuart

    My daugher had her vision checked by an ophthamologist (medical doctor
    who does eyes) before she was old enough to do the non-reader eye
    chart, which has pictures that little kids can name.
    
    The doctor used drops to dialate her pupils so he could measure using
    some other method.
    
    It wouldn't hurt to check it out if you have a concern, based on the
    symptoms listed in above replies or based on what you get from a call
    to the doctor.
    
    Personally, I wouldn't trust something like this to anyone but an
    ophthamologist (like an optometrist or optician, both not doctors).
    
    I'd also make sure that anyone you deal with is used to dealing with
    young children.  I know someone who is excellent in Nashua, and you
    could get recommendations from other parents for other places, but it's
    worth the trouble to check out that aspect, I think.  
    
    Good luck.
    
    Signed,  Four-eyes.