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children's eyes

Episode 13 – Eyes, Vision and Your Child

January 30, 2019 By Sonia Bestulic

While good eyesight is clearly critical for the overall growth of your child, it probably isn’t as important to the development of your child’s learning abilities. However, with increasing screen times among children and other risk factors, your child’s vision might just be in danger. How can you assure that your child’s eyesight, and therefore his or her overall development, is protected? In this episode, Amy Fortescue, a behavioral optometrist from New South Wales will be helping parents who are interested in helping their children develop good eyesight.

Amy Fortescue graduated from the University of New South Wales with first class honors in 2010. From there, this brilliant eye doctor took several courses on behavioral optometry. According to her, this interest started back when she was just 15 years old. At that time, she was already working in her father’s optometry practice. Today, apart from being a mother to her 20-month old child, Amy is a clinical supervisor at the University of New South Wales Optometry Clinic. With a passion for children’s vision, eye disease management, and short-sightedness control, you are definitely in good hands with Amy’s expertise.

Key Learnings

What behavioral optometry is and why Aimee chose to specialize in this area
The difference between optometry and behavioral optometry
The relationship between visual function and learning
What usually happens when someone consults a general optometrist
The best age for a child’s first visit to an optometrist
Symptoms to look at for potential vision problems in children ages three and below
How vision function changes as a child grows
Government-sponsored vision screenings and how to make sense of them
How behavioral optometry could help children with learning difficulties
What vision therapy looks like and how it helps a child with vision difficulties
When or when not to give your child eyewear with colored overlays
The latest evidence on how screen time affects your child’s vision

Amy?s Practical Tips for Taking Good Care of Your Child?s Eyes

Encourage your child to take rest breaks. Take 20-second breaks between 20 minutes of work. During this rest time, encourage your child to look at things more than 20 meters away.
Teach your child to work, read, or use gadgets at the right distance, ideally about half an arm’s length from whatever they are doing.
Bring your child to an optometrist at least every two years.
Encourage your child to spend more time outdoors, about an hour and a half, away from screens and video games.

Quote

“Visual function and visual processing are both critical for good reading.”

Links:

Dont forget to subscribe: chataboutchildren.com/subscribe

Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: children's eyes, eyecare, eyes, healthy eyes, vision

Episode 12 – Eye Protection & Your Child

January 16, 2019 By Sonia Bestulic

It’s easy to take eyesight for granted. We only realize how much we are missing from the world when we lose it permanently or even temporarily through eye injury. Children, especially in their formative years, rely a lot on their vision that parents should be very concerned about how they can protect their children’s eyesight. It is therefore quite unthinkable that there exists very limited information on the internet about eye protection.

In this episode, we invited Emma Richards to talk about the importance of vision and how parents can protect their children’s eyesight. Emma is an optometrist and a mother who lives in the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. She had training in behavioral optometry, and she continues to nurture her interest in children’s vision. According to her, her primary motivation is to educate people about accidental eye damage and its prevention throughout the lifespan. This mission is supported by an online business she put up, which provides quality eye protection for kids.

Key Learnings

  • What Emma loves about being an optometrist
  • What influenced Emma’s decision to work on children’s vision
  • How Emma became interested with eye injuries on children
  • The most common eye injuries on children based on age groups
  • Why 44-76% of eye injuries happen at home
  • Why it’s important to watch how your pets and your children are interacting
  • What parents can do to prevent eye injury accidents
  • First aid treatments for different eye injuries
  • What children might see in their vision when they have a damaged retina
  • The long-term repercussions of some significant eye injuries
  • Some ideal scenarios when it comes to eye protection
  • How to find the best pair of sunglasses

Emma’s advice for parents who want to train their kids to wear eye protection

  • If you can get your child to wear glasses as early as possible, it will be easier to have them put them on in the long-run, because they’re already used to it.
  • Implement the following rule: “No hat. No sunglasses. No sunscreen. No play.”

Quote

“If we can give the kids the best start with seeing and protecting their eyes, we?re setting them up for the best outcomes in the future.”

Links:

  • ChildrenSafetyGlasses.com.au
  • Don’t forget to subscribe: chataboutchildren.com/subscribe

Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: children's eyes, eyecare, healthy eyes

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