Last week I brought a group of 1st year optometry students to an
elementary school in Brooklyn . We performed a vision screening
on roughly 80 pre-kindergarten, kindergarten and 1st grade
students. I really enjoy taking 1st year students on vision
screenings. It’s their first real clinical experiences. They get
to practice what they have been taught on patients other than
their classmates. There are so many “teachable moments.” It
never takes more than 5 minutes before one of them notices
something worthy of a referral for a comprehensive vision
examination. They begin to see the connections between various
measurements and visual function in a classroom (and beyond!).
And who can resist smiling when you watch a 5 year old try to
take apart a student’s ophthalmoscope. The purpose of a vision
screening is to identify children with vision problems requiring
intervention. Sometimes these vision problems are easily
overlooked. A classic example is hyperopia (farsightedness).
When children are farsighted, they are