What is our son’s vision like?

The answer to this question we would find out after we picked the kid up early from school to take him to his eye exam required for kindergarten.

My husband filled out the paperwork while I kept Andrew busy. He asked questions about what he was facing.

“Will they use eye drops?”

“If you follow what they are instructing you to do and read the letters they show then probably not,” I said.

The optometrist office told me earlier that they would only need eye dilation, which causes the pupils to widen if he was having trouble reading the letters or they were having trouble determining if he had an issue with his eyes.

We waited for only a short bit of time before being called back.

The exam began with some evaluations done by the optometrist assistant and she did the following checks.

Retinoscopy

Retinoscopy involved shining a light into the eye to observe reflection from the back of the eye or retina. The test helps determine if he has any clouding of the lens of the eye or significant refractive error.

Vision Test

She used an eye chart to assess his ability to see far away and close up. This will determine if is nearsighted or farsighted.

He read the letters from different lines without to much trouble.

Eye Movement Test

She checked Andrew’s peripheral vision by moving a pen back and forth in front of his eyes.

Random Dot Stereogram

She administered a test using special patterns of dots and 3-D glasses to measure how well his eyes worked together as a team.

Color Blind Test

This test involved seeing numbers out of dots that are a different color than the dots surrounding them.

Someone who is colorblind sees all of these dots as the same color, whereas someone with normal vision can distinguish the different colors.

Andrew had no problem finding the numbers in the dots.

The Keratometer

She then used a machine that is called a keratometer that is used to measure the curvature of his eye’s clear front surface or cornea and checks for astigmatism.

After these tests, we went over to talk with the eye doctor.

Seeing the eye doctor

The optometrist decided to re-administer the eye chart test, just to make sure he got it all and Andrew read the letters once more line by line.

“He has no issues with his eyes according to all evaluations of the tests,” the doctor said at the end, which was great to hear.

A Treat

We were happy to hear this and we took him out to eat to Culver’s for dinner. He did an excellent job following orders and telling them the letters he saw on the eye chart.

I think I captured most of the eye exam, but here are some links for more information:

• American Optometric Association Pediatric Exams
• Cleveland Clinic: When Should Your Child Have a First Eye Exam
• WebMD: Your Child’s First Eye Exam

OTHER KINDERGARTEN EXAMS:

Taking the Kid to the Dentist