Comprehensive Eye Exam Before School Starts Can Set Your Student Up For Success

As students and their families prepare for the new school year, parents should consider adding a comprehensive eye exam to their pre-school checklist.

Local Optometrist Dr. Jason Clopton said a lot of vision and learning problems in students don’t always show up in screenings. He said screenings are great for catching near-sightedness or a lazy eye, but they often miss the more subtle issues.

“But then up close you might have some troubles or you may have some eye movement problems or you could have learning difficulties,” Clopton said. “So in going back to school we need to check those so your kid has all the tools necessary to be able to learn in the first place.”

Clopton said it is great to have a young student learning to read and learning to navigate a classroom test for 20/20 vision. However, he said that is just one skill out of 17 needed for that child to be successful in learning.

Clopton said vision issues can make it uncomfortable for students to learn. For example, he said if a student learning to read finds it too difficult, then they ultimately do not want to continue learning to read.

“Your kid is in school and if they are struggling at all, if they are not at their peers, then we need to figure out why they’re not doing that,” Clopton said. “And what it really does is relieve your kid of the stress of having to learn with difficulties. If we can remove those difficulties, then your kid actually enjoys schools and is more confident and is more relaxed in school and is able to learn a whole lot easier.”