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The number of pupils for whom spectacles were
prescribed was 928.
Miss Lewis, Orthoptist, treated 138 school children
during 1959.
Vision Testing. The importance of good vision to the
optimal development and educational attainment of children
is widely acknowledged as children cannot develop to the
full unless they have the full use of their senses, including
that of vision. There is obviously a need to discover those
children who have visual defects, but unfortunately a preschool
child with defective vision is unlikely to receive
attention unless the defeGt is gross or is associated with
squint. In some cases the defect is not discovered until the
child is able to read his letters - at age 7-8 on average - by
which time the defect may have progressed too far for
correction and the child is later found to have a useless eye,
a condition called unilateral amblyopia which is really a
preventable disability.
There is no simple remedy for this state of affairs, as
screen testing the vision of school entrants and pre-school
children has always presented peculiar difficulties because
children of this age group are normally illiterate and cannot
or will not co-operate in the examination.
There are various test methods available but all have
limitations and no single test is both feasible and infallible
We have been trying various methods on our older day
nursery children and in pupils attending the nursery school
class with the co-operation of the teaching staff, and the
trials seem to indicate that a little known test may prove
useful. Further trials are planned in a search for a reliable
method for use in our vision screening programme.
Paediatric Clinic
A Consultant Paediatrician, Dr. T. Savage, of the
Regional Hospital Board holds a session each fortnight a.
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