For eight-year-old Andrea Wessels, life started ordinarily enough. It was only when the grade schooler started her formal education that her parents noticed how she would squint when watching television.
Being first-time parents, they did not know how to proceed or where to turn to as the little girl would often arrive home from school with red eyes.
Her constant complaints of fatigue infuriated her father who believed that she had an aversion to learning and that she was feigning tiredness to escape the school books.
A chance visit to Nice Eyes Optometrists at the Crystal Mall in Extension Six would shed light on what her parents thought may have been a learning disability when resident optometrist, Maya Laxmidas conducted a comprehensive eye screening which revealed that the young Wessels was visually impaired and would need prescription glasses to enable her sight to improve.
After slipping on the glasses, the youngster took one look at her mother and father and said, “Mommy and Daddy, I can see you now.”
Her vision was so badly impaired that she showed little to no interest in schoolwork and would think up creative excuses not to participate in class and she devised means of expending her energies through play instead.
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Laxmidas, recognising these symptoms agrees, and said, “Children go about their daily lives without informing parents of their lack of ability to see.
“They do this for the simple reason that they themselves do not know that they have the ability to see any better than what they are already. It’s always very imperative that parents have their children’s eyes screened or tested from a very young age.”
According to Laxmidas, recent studies have shown that it is recommended that children have their eyes tested from the age of six months. Laxmidas urged parents to note certain behaviours in children which may be as a result of visual impairment.
These are: A child avoids work which requires that they look closely at text. The child struggles to comprehend simple words and sentences.
They are unable to copy sentences from the board. The child does not write between the lines in their exercise books and their work is untidy.
She said, “It is behaviours like these which indicate that the child needs some type of intervention.”
For the man in the street, access to affordable eye care is not easy, especially considering that 97 percent of all blind and partially sighted people in this country are not employed.
This raises serious concerns for parents who do not have the financial resources to ensure that their children’s sight is protected.
Many young children are written off by educators not equipped to diagnose visual impairment and suffer silently as their peers excel academically, which gives credence to the slogan, ‘You must be blind not to see the advantage of having your eyes tested regularly’.
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