Elite School of Optometry

36 years of excellence in optometry education



School Children Vision Testing



Protocol outline

Highlights

Major school screening so far


01. School children vision testing

Visual problems in children can affect their physical, intellectual, social and emotional development. Early detection and correction of refractive errors may enable them in improved academic performance. The objectives of the school vision screening are to identify children with visual impairments, through selected vision screening procedures, providing appropriate treatment such as glasses, establishing follow up of the treatment for identified students and educating teachers and children about eye care.


02. Vision for Special needs project

Children with special needs such as Cerebral palsy and Down syndrome have higher prevalence of refractive errors, strabismus and various other ocular problems. The vision for special needs project aims at performing comprehensive eye examination for this population and catering to the visual needs through prescription of eye glasses, and low vision devices.


03. Vision and Learning

The aim of this project is to assess the eye teaming and coordination abilities (referred to as Binocular vision) and its impact on academic performance and vision related quality of life in the Rural and Urban parts of Chennai. Children who are found to have Binocular vision anomalies will be provided with eye exercises and the Vision related quality of life and Binocular vision parameters will be assessed after vision therapy.

The second part of this project deals with the special population of children with Learning disability. There is converging evidence that children with Learning disability have visual issues specific to eye movements and binocular vision that can be an added hindrance to their reading difficulty. Vision therapy will be provided to this group with binocular vision anomalies and the impact of the same on their reading performance will be assessed.


04. Single day vision testing

40% (400 million) of India's population is below the age of 18 years. According to Vision 2020, the important causes for childhood blindness in India are refractive error, cataract related amblyopia, and corneal diseases. An estimated 2.7-6.4% of children are with refractive errors. Identifying the eye conditions particularly refractive errors through vision screening among this population is the first step towards eradication of the visual impairment However, with the increased number of children to be screened, screening strategies should aim at quality service to large number of children within a short span of time. To explore the possibility, Elite School of Optometry, Chennai initiated vision screening of many schools in a single day.


Major Single day vision testing so far:

Schools Number of schools Number of children screened Year of screening
Chennai Corporation School Children 51 12448 2010
Chennai Corporation School Children 39 8469 2012
Tirumala Tirupathy Devasthanam Schools 10 3456 2012
Vellore Tribal Schools 06 1250 2012
Salem Tribal Schools 2012