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DEL.ICIO.US“Eye test can transform a child’s entire world”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Every morning turned into a tug-of-war when it came time for preschool.
Annai Jimenez, 5, didn’t want to go. She’d latch onto mom and refuse to enter her classroom at Seven Oaks Academy in Lilburn.
“She’d cry and cry and cry,” said Silvia Cabrera of Lilburn. “It was a big problem for us.”
The family didn’t know why till the preschool held a vision pre-screening for its charges. Annai failed. Her parents had her eyes examined again by a doctor. Annai needed glasses.
Apparently, her poor vision contributed to her angst toward school. If it weren’t for the screening, the problem could have gone undetected for years.
“I am so thankful,” Cabrera told me. “We had no idea.”
The free screenings were performed by Prevent Blindness Georgia, a state eye health and safety organization. The organization trained nursing students to screen the Seven Oaks prekindergartners.
Statewide, Prevent Blindness Georgia expects to screen about 30,000 4-year-olds this year. The organization has so far tested more than 1,000 Gwinnett kids. Last school year, the organization screened 2,279 prekindergartners at 43 local schools and child care centers. The screenings are paid with gifts, donations and those $1 contributions from driver’s license renewals.
Good eyesight, obviously, is critical to education. If you can’t see the numbers and letters well, learning becomes difficult. Might lead to behavior problems, too.
And there’s the possibility of permanent vision loss, especially when a 4-year-old favors a “good eye” over a “bad eye,” said Jenny Pomeroy, president of Prevent Blindness Georgia.
“Four is the age the brain matures to a point that vision can be turned off in one eye,” she said. “The child quits using the eye that [he or she] doesn’t see out of as well, even if there’s not a significant difference in the vision. We want to find those 4-year-olds because this can result in permanent vision loss in the child.”
Pomeroy said kids with vision issues may not know that they see differently from other people. They don’t tell their parents. They assume it’s normal. Screenings, generally, are the only way to detect problems.
The parents at Seven Oaks were like Annai’s. They had no idea their kids had vision issues. Of 89 kids screened, 19 received referrals for further testing. Of the 19, 10 now wear glasses, said Barbara Myers, a spokeswoman for Prevent Blindness Georgia.
Myers praised Mika Patel, a Seven Oaks resource coordinator, for encouraging parents to take their children to the eye doctor.
“Sometimes that doesn’t happen,” she said.
At first, Annai didn’t want to wear her new glasses. She didn’t want to be different. When she saw how they helped her vision, though, she saw the light. Now she wears them every day.
And she doesn’t put up a fight about preschool anymore.
For more information about Prevent Blindness Georgia, visit www.preventblindness.org./georgia/
Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
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By Jim
November 25, 2007 8:07 AM | Link to this
I taught school for over 30 years. At the beginning of each semester, using an overhead projector, I would have students read out loud from their desks.
It was surprising how many could not see the words on the screen.
Each semester I would find two or three students who needed glasses.
How they got to high school with this problem not being discovered I will never understand.
By Michael H. Smith
November 25, 2007 12:18 PM | Link to this
Larry Elder wrote an article on healthcare that would probably set liberals off like skyrockets on the 4th of July. “Lessons when dinning with liberals” touches on the source of many healthcare problems in this country – the government. While this organization, Prevent Blindness America, promotes a worthy cause in screening of children’s vision - under their policy position statements - their position statement looks to government to solve alot of their problems of focus in a state screening law and as usual: “To this end, the state should ensure adequate funding for this legislative enactment.”
Nowhere in their advocacy section, after lightly gleaning through the periphery of material on their Website does anything hint at working with private sector companies or private sector insurance companies to ensure screening of vision.
Back to Mr. Elder and touching on state mandates, such as Prevent Blindness America would have written into law. According to Mr. Elder: Most states mandate the type of services that must be covered – podiatrists, acupuncturists, massage therapists, etc. – whether the patient wants it included or not.
So typical of government mandates and why the state should NOT ensure adequate funding for mandates that the state should never have written into law in the first place, which only drives-up the costs of healthcare in the second place.
Returning to Mr. Elder and giving Prevent Blindness America a vision test, maybe they will see “private enterprise” as the better solution. Instead of lobbying Congress and State legislators an impetus on working with big drug store chains like CVS, Rite Aid and Walgreens, along with the largest U.S. retailer, Wal-Mart, that are expanding walk-in clinics in their stores to include providing vision screening services would achieve their goals sooner than government mandates and mandating funding of vision screening? Perhaps Prevent Blindness America can lobby the insurance industry to offer, as Mr. Elder suggest, a bare-bones type of coverage that would cover comprehensive early and continued screening of children i.e. eyes, ears, nose and throat?
Oh but wait a minute, when dinning with liberals, always concerned about dishing up a plate full of the haves and haves not, what appetite can be satisfied without a fat juicy slice of big government mandate pie?
Okay Neolibs here is your cut of the Peach: Because early and continued health screening of children actually pays dividends back to our society and in effect lowers healthcare insurance costs, the states should give tax credits, a dollar for dollar rebate to all those parents who voluntarily do the right and responsible thing to have their children screened, that honestly cannot afford healthcare insurance that covers such expenses as vision screening of children.
Hold on conservatives, there is method in this madness of feeding the liberals. Even though the sign says, “don’t feed the liberals or the bears!” Revisiting Mr. Elder: How many people don’t know that there are laws that prohibit interstate health insurance sales, preventing people in state A from getting medical insurance from a company in state B?
When the states are confronted with losing revenue by giving tax credits to the uninsured, it will force a repeal of such laws that prohibit interstate health insurance sales, which will make things like vision screening vastly more affordable in private sector insurance policies. It will also, put pressure on members in the insurance industry to finally have to compete against one another for business once these big government insurance profit protection laws are made null and void.
Nice article Mr. Badie, though, I’m always leery of anything or any organization that reaches for a bottle of government mandates, instead of reaching for a bucket full of mandates on parental responsibility to solve problems best remedied by private enterprise, when the problem of government is taken out of the problem.
By Bruce Wilcox
November 25, 2007 12:30 PM | Link to this
I wasn’t tested until the fourth grade, I had amblyopia or lazy eye. The problem was getting tested so late, amblyopia if caught early can be corrected, in my case it came too late. In cases like amblyopia one eye will have 20/20, the other can have a range of say 20/400 as in my case, so it is hard to detect.
This was way back in the fifties when eye tests were not the norm unless you walked into walls a lot.
By Bruce Wilcox
November 25, 2007 12:45 PM | Link to this
Typical of Smith, a reply that is always longer than Rick’s column and more political babble than substance.
A teacher or school nurse can administer a simple eye test and detect a problem early.
If a problem is found give the poor kid a cane, an insured child can get glasses.
Jim if you read Smith’s rantings you can see why children can reach high school without being tested.
By Michael H. Smith
November 25, 2007 1:07 PM | Link to this
Typical liberal tripe. Leave it to government, leave it to an already overburden teacher to do what every parent should know to do as a parent: Get your child a complete check-up regularly.
Amazing how liberals always want to write the rules of what constitutes free speech on the property belonging to others. They really cannot tolerate expression of objective thought beyond government thinking.
By KIM
November 25, 2007 7:28 PM | Link to this
Thank you, Rick, for another article that I hope is read by the people who need to read it. And thank you to whomever speaks up and takes action for children. Finally, thank God Mr. M. Smith does not have any influence.
By Michael H. Smith
November 25, 2007 8:37 PM | Link to this
Speaking directly to irresponsible parents that must have government to tell them…. NO, make them, get their children’s health checked out is not speaking up for children?
Pressing the issue of healthcare costs and the reasons those costs are so high that even responsible parents have to put things off they know is the right thing to do, without government holding their hands or binding them, or worse, government taking more money out of their pockets, is not speaking up for the children?
Knock me over with a feather Mr. Badie.