Healthy vision is critical for every child’s social development, school success, and well-being.
A child’s vision develops from the time he/she is born until kindergarten. Infants can only clearly see objects that are 8 to 10 inches from their faces. A baby’s eyesight begins to improve at about 3-4 months old. Over the next few years, a child develops his/her ability to see further away, judge distances, and improve eye-body and eye-hand coordination.
A child’s vision provides an important source of information about the world around them. Thus, an uncorrected vision problem can interfere with a child’s ability to learn and reach his/her highest potential.
Social Development
School Success
Well-Being
DID YOU KNOW?
- Children rarely complain about vision problems. Often, a child believes everyone sees the world the way he/she does. That is because children’s vision problems are often silent, without any signs.
- Vision problems are one of the most common disabling conditions in childhood. About one in 20 preschoolers and one in four school-age children have vision problems.
- Uncorrected vision problems in children affect health and wellbeing in adulthood, and can lead to permanent vision loss.
Preventing Early Childhood Blindness
It is critical to identify issues with eye health and vision development at a young age—problems are easier to correct when treatment starts early. Some problems, like amblyopia (also called “lazy eye”), can cause permanent vision loss if not caught and treated early.
Learning and Literacy Success
Healthy vision is a strong predictor of performance.
Uncorrected vision problems are linked with lower early literacy performance and pre-reading skills in preschool and kindergarten.
Over 50% of Arizona third grade students are not reading proficient.