Symptoms of eye problems among children

Parents may mistakenly believe that if their child has trouble seeing, they'll tell them about the problem. But most kids don't even know that they have a problem. To them, the way they see is normal.

Examples of some symptoms we should look out for.

1. If your child avoids close work or seems to have a short attention span when doing close work, such as reading or working on the computer.
2. If you feel like your child should be a lot brighter than school results indicates,
3. If your child is bumping into things a lot, or
4. If you see that one eye doesn't quite follow the other as it should,
5. If you have any serious eye problems that run in the family, such as glaucoma or an eye turn

Particularly for point (5), your child should begin having professional eye exams starting as early as 6 months of age.

Beyond eye charts for your children...

As a parent, I do hear that the school nurses are routinely checking our children's vision using the eye charts. But are these quick screenings thorough enough to detect most eye disorders?

Probably not. These nurses would help to alert the parents if any obvious abnormality is observed. On an occassion, I did received a note from these nurses to bring my daughter for further check up.

The myopic problem among our school going children is quite well documented in Singapore.

But parents need to realize there's more to vision than seeing the eye chart.

A comprehensive exam is one done by a trained eye professional, such as an optometrist or ophthalmologist, that looks not only at how well your child can read an eye chart, but looks at the health of the eye and checks to be sure that the eyes work together as a team.

Some doctors recommend starting routine professional eye exams around age 5, or just before your child starts school.

The school, parents and trained eye professionals are working together to help to arrest the myopic problem among our children.

Who should be prescribing your contact lens?

A "contact lens practitioner" is the person who can engaged in the testing of sight and the prescription or the fitting of contact lenses.


Under the CONTACT LENS PRACTITIONERS ACT (CHAPTER 53A) in Singapore, the person must be registered with and licensed by Contact Lens Practitioners Board under the authority of Health Sciences Authority established under the Health Sciences Authority Act (Cap. 122C).


How do I know whether he is licenced or otherwise?
Every registered contact lens practitioner and every person who holds a provisional licence shall display his licence conspicuously at the principal place of practice as a contact lens practitioner.


The licence is subject to renewal on an annual basis.