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Parents advised to check that poor eye sight is not holding their children back

BayRadio | September 10, 2019

Opticians are using the start of the new school year as an opportunity to inform parents and
children of the importance of regular eye tests.

At the start of term, they recommend that parents take their children to a professional who
can check their vision and take the right measures to ensure that their eye sight is not
holding them back. Poor vision can inhibit learning and hold them back from performing well
in sports.

Juan Carlos Martínez Moral, president of the General Council of Colleges of Opticians-
Optometrists (CGCOO), says: ‘As vision can often change during your school career, it is
important to have regular eye examinations by an optician-optometrist. By having your eyes
tested at least once a year, you can rule out refractive problems such as long-sightedness,
short-sightedness, or astigmatism; binocular vision abnormalities such as strabismus, or
amblyopia, popularly referred to as "lazy eye".’
Francisco Jurado from optical group Specsavers Ópticas agrees: ‘We have seen a high
number of children needing glasses across our opticians in Spain and experts around the
world are reporting a sharp increase in myopia in young children. The difficulty with children
with poor eye sight is they often don’t realise there is anything wrong before it is identified in
an eye test. This means they struggle unnecessarily at school and can be misdiagnosed with
learning difficulties simply because of their poor vision. To avoid issues like these, we also
recommend yearly eye tests for children before they go to full-time education and
incorporating an eye test into the “Back to School” routine to pick up any changes early,
before it starts to effect their learning.’
According to charity ONCE, they have 4,245 members aged 18 and under who are suffering
from low vision or blindness and studies show that one out of every four children has an
undetected vision problem that may inhibit their progress.
Common eye conditions can all be identified with a complete eye test. The sooner that vision
problems are detected, the better the outcome. Conditions such as squint and amblyopia
(lazy eye) can be treated more effectively if they are picked up earlier.

Book a Back to School eye test at Specsavers Ópticas during September and see their
range of glasses which are specially designed for children, including a new range of Toy
Story glasses. To find your nearest store visit www.specsavers.es

Written by BayRadio


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