Many thanks to Sarah who sent in her account of working with a teacher of the visually impaired. – Ann Z
My nearly four-year-old daughter Isabella has multiple ocular diagnoses: severe hyperopia (farsightedness), astigmatism, mild macular hypoplasia (“underdevelopment of the macula, a small area on the retina responsible for seeing in detail” – read more) , latent nystagmus (“involuntary rapid movement of the eyeball, occurring only when one eye is covered” – read more), and intermittent exotropia (“eyes that turn outward” - read more). She began seeing an ophthalmologist at six weeks old and received her first pair of glasses at 15 months. Today at nearly age four, her acuity measures about 20/70 with correction. Isabella also has bilateral sensorineural hearing loss, childhood apraxia of speech (a motor speech disorder), hypotonia (low muscle tone), and fine and gross motor delays.
Isabella
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Zoe’s prescription increased pretty dramatically recently (her astigmatism jumped from +0.75 to +1.75). It really surprised me, since previous big prescription changes were usually preceded by her eyes crossing more, or Zoe not wanting to wear her glasses any more. This time, she had neither of those symptoms. But looking back, I guess there were a few clues. Most notably, she had been looking at things through the outside edge of her glasses rather than straight on. Turns out, she gets a stronger magnification looking through the edges of the lenses. I hadn’t noticed so much, but her teacher had noticed it at school.
Since getting her new glasses, she’s been looking at everyone and everything straight on again, and her teacher mentioned that she has just recently (again, since the new prescription) been able to catch a ball that is thrown or bounced to her, and accurately kick a ball about 4 feet towards a person. We’re thrilled with that!
So for us, signs that we might be looking at a prescription change include:
- eyes crossing
- eyes drifting apart (when she needed her prescription reduced)
- not wanting to wear her glasses
- not looking at things straight on, rather, looking out the side of her lenses
What other clues have you noticed that indicate your child’s prescription has changed?
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