Eye health resource
What You Should Know About Low Vision in Children
Low vision is significant visual impairment that cannot be fully corrected with ordinary glasses, contact lenses, medicine, or surgery. Children may benefit from specialist evaluation, school support, assistive technology, and vision rehabilitation.
Reviewed for accuracy by Justin Bazan, OD on .
Low vision means significant visual impairment that makes everyday activities difficult and cannot be fully corrected with ordinary glasses or contact lenses or standard medical or surgical treatment. It is different from simply needing a stronger eyeglass prescription.
What can cause low vision in a child?
Low vision can have many causes. Examples include congenital or inherited eye conditions, retinal or optic-nerve disorders, cataracts, glaucoma, albinism, nystagmus, and cerebral visual impairment (CVI), in which the brain has difficulty processing visual information.
Because the cause matters, a child with suspected significant visual impairment may need evaluation by pediatric ophthalmology or another appropriate specialist in addition to routine optometric care.
How can low vision affect school and daily life?
A child may have difficulty reading standard print, seeing information across a classroom, recognizing faces, navigating unfamiliar spaces, participating in some activities, or using a computer without accessibility adjustments. The exact challenges vary greatly from child to child.
Children may not always be able to describe what they cannot see, so input from parents, teachers, and the child’s care team can be important.
What is vision rehabilitation?
Vision rehabilitation helps a person make the best use of remaining vision and other senses. Depending on the child’s needs, support may include magnification, improved lighting and contrast, large print, screen magnification or text-to-speech technology, orientation and mobility training, classroom accommodations, and other educational or assistive services.
Glasses may still be useful when a correctable refractive error is also present, but glasses alone do not eliminate true low vision.
Park Slope Eye’s role
Park Slope Eye provides pediatric eye care and can evaluate common vision and eye-health concerns. We do not provide low-vision rehabilitation or Vision Therapy. When a child’s findings suggest the need for pediatric ophthalmology, low-vision rehabilitation, educational vision services, or another specialty, referral to an appropriate provider is the correct next step.
Learn more about children’s eye exams at Park Slope Eye.