Vision in the First year of Life:
• Newborn: Re-organization of brain cells occur in first 3 weeks of life
• Neural connections turn out to be building blocks of a healthy visual system.
• Vital connections only with the help of visual stimuli from the world around them.
• Failure to receive normal visual input in first 3 months- usually due to visual defects at birth, i.e., cataracts-baby will never recover brain cell connections and will suffer one or more visual deficits for life—this 3 month window is called the Neonatal Sensitive Period.

Some Irreversible Deficits Involve:
• Problems with controlling eye movements-strabismus Children born before 35 weeks have a 30% greater chance of developing strabismus or amblyopia.
• Latent Nystagmus-a rhythmical oscillation of the eye-ball
• Dissociated vertical deviations
• Infantile cataracts: 4 cases in 10 thousand cases in American children born each year. Untreated will result in blindness in that eye.

First 3 months:
• Vision still evolving
• Baby sees mother’s facial expression
• Eyes may not be well coordinated. -but should be “straight” and work together at 6 weeks of age. Please note if by 6 weeks the eyes are still crossed, the infant will not outgrow the squint! If one eye is constantly deviated, suppression amblyopia will develop. Treatment can rectify amblyopia, but the chances of success worsen progressively the longer the squint is allowed to persist, and the older the child becomes. After the age of 6, little or no improvement can generally be expected!

• Birth-baby sees light and dark patterns; objects beyond 8 inches are blurred. They prefer to look at faces. Color vision-gray.
• 8 weeks-babies focus eyes on a parent or person near them.
• 2 months baby can distinguish red and blue from white.
• 4 months- color vision similar to an adult.
• Good control of eye movements and eye-body coordination skills.

Pseudo-strabismus: Certain children may appear to have a strabismus when in fact they do not. An extra fold of skin near the inner eye, a broad, flat nose or eyes that are usually close together may also produce the effect of false (or pseudo) strabismus. False strabismus should disappear as a child’s face grows.

• 6 to 8 months-Eyes should focus equally. Most babies start crawling which helps develop eye-hand-foot-body

• 8 t0 12 months-Babies can now judge distances fairly and throw things with precision.

Vision During 1 to 2 years
A child’s eye-hand coordination and depth preception should be well developed . Now is the time for parents to help the child refine and develop vision skills through use.

1. Symptoms that Indicate a Vision Problem:
• One or both pupils have an unusual or whitish appearance.
• There is persistent watering or discharge from the eyes.
• One eye appears to be turned frequently or the eyes do not seem to move well.
• There is extreme sensitivity to light or glare.
• The head is consistently tilted/turned to one side.
• The child sits close to the television and holds books/puzzles at very close range.
• The eyes do not look the same.


A complete eye-health examination is recommended when there is:
• A family history of turned eye (strabismus).
• Lazy eye (amblyopia)
• Strong glasses at an early age (refractive error)
• Premature birth ( 36 weeks gestation or less)
• Developmental delay

2. Importance of Early Eye-Health Examinations:
• Studies show that school children with significant strabismus have self-image problems
• Vision difficulties, as amblyopia, that may interfere with career decisions and general life skills may be eliminated or improved when treatment is undertaken at an early age.
• If a baby experiences visual difficulties this increase significantly his/her chances for developmental difficulties.
• After age 6 little or no improvement can generally be expected. Early treatment makes a functional result a realistic goal.
• The first eye-health examination should begin at age 6 months, then annually to age 18. These eye-exams are paid by Alberta Health, annually.
• Early detection and treatment improves the outcome in children with strabismus and amblyopia. Early referral to an eye health professional is recommended.
• By the time a child is 9 years old, eyesight is almost fully developed and can not easily be changed. This is why it is very important to have eyesight checked at an early age!
• Early detection and treatment of amblyopia and strabismus in infants and young children improves the prognosis for normal eye development. The success of intervention may depend on age, with increased likelihood of attaining normal or near-normal vision with early detection and treatment, the older the patient, the longer the duration of treatment needed.
• Undetected vision problems are an important cause of academic failure.

3. Statistics:
• 80% of LEARNING is through vision!
• School screenings may have a false-positive rate of 30% or more.
• Undetected vision problems are common in pre-school children with an estimated prevalence of 5-10%. About 2-5% suffer from amblyopia (“lazy eye”, loss of vision due to disuse) and strabismus (ocular misalignment) which aside from congenital conditions, usually develop between infancy and ages 5-7.
• 12 out of 100 children are affected by binocular vision difficulties
• 16% of children suffer from inadequate vision skills.
• Up to 94% of children with reading problems have reduced visual skills.
• Vision impairments affect at least 15 out of 100 people…yet, frequently go unrecognized or treated.

4. Implications of Undiagnosed Eye Problems:
• Undetected vision problems are an important cause of academic failure.
• After the age of 9, eyesight is usually fully developed and cannot be changed easily.
• Visual abnormalities were reported to be found in more than 75% of reading-disabled children.
• A Lazy (Amblyopic) eye if not determined early means that that one eye has not developed normally and will always have blurred vision, even with the best glasses or contact lenses that can be prescribed. Amblyopia affects 2 to 3 percent of the population. Good sharpness of sight and two-eyed binocular vision care are vital for children to succeed in scool, sports, or any other activity requires clear vision, good hand-eye coordination, and strong depth perception. When children with untreated amblyopia grow to be adults , their choice of career may be limited and, if they are unlucky enough to lose vision in their good eye , they could be visually impaired or legally blind for life.
• Learning can be impaired if eye movements are slow or clumsy if the eyes jump, “stutter” or lose their place when reading a book or from a computer screen. If a child does not have adequate vision skills eye strain symptoms may occur. It’s NOT seeing a problem, so glasses alone won’t fix the problem. It is an eye-muscle problem!
• With poor visual skills a child may react in one or more ways, including:
• Avoiding reading and other near visual work as much as possible
• Attempting to do work but with decreased understanding
• Being an “underachiever”
• Having a short attention span
• Getting fatigued easily
• The only test most children have is a brief screening at school which only checks the distance using the eye chart. No review is done of depth perception, color vision, eye health, eye coordination, or frequency of review, thus each year thousands of children suffer from vision problems that can make school and life difficult, especially with respect to a child’s most important developmental tool-SELF- CONCEPT!
Finally…Our parents need to understand and to be educated on how vital good vision is to their child’s development. As children grow and mature, over 80% of what they learn is processed through their eyes. Children with poor vision do not develop many normal skills. They may struggle in school, have difficulty in sports, develop poor self-esteem, and have doors closed to many careers because of poor vision.

Please, for the sake of our kid’s advise parents of the need to begin the first eye-health exam at 6 months and annually there after to age 18, these services are paid by ALBERTA HEALTH annually.