Back to School Basics:
√ Every child needs a pre-K and regular eye exam
√ Parents: check up electronic device use and eyestrain
Here’s the annual wellness checklist: dental, well-child physical check-up and comprehensive eye exam.
Most families have insurance that covers regular eye exams, and the Affordable Care Act offers access to pediatric eye-care benefits up to age 18. But parents often do not recognize the importance of eye exams in childhood. Learning is 80 percent visual – and children’s eyes change. Eye function problems can also develop into sight-threatening or compromising conditions. If a child experiences vision problems, they don’t have anything to compare it with.
A vision screening is not an eye exam. Many eye disorders, even far-sightedness, hyperopia, are missed in routine vision screenings.
“Too many children have struggled with reading and math for a few years or longer without being properly diagnosed and treated,” said Dr. Nicholas Colatrella, PineCone Vision Center, Sartell, and the president-elect of the Minnesota Optometric Association.
Attached is a story about 8-year-old Logan which highlights this. In third grade he was struggling with reading and math. He finally received diagnosis and began treatment.
Increasingly, students are also using their electronic devices far more than parents realize. (See attached social media resources that show
Dr. Nicholas Colatrella, PineCone Vision Center, Sartell, is the president-elect of the Minnesota Optometric Association.
The Minnesota Optometric Association has almost 400 member doctors of optometry around the state. The MOA is committed to furthering awareness of optometrists as primary eye care or family eye doctors and to bringing about change that positively impacts the MOA member doctors and their patients. For more information on the MOA visit http://Mnnesota.aoa.org.