Is your child struggling to read or remember numbers and does he or she squint in bright sunlight and bump into things regularly? Have your child’s eyes tested before you consider a potential learning problem.

Looking the problem in the eye

Strabismus, also called wandering eyes, crossed-eyes or squint, occurs when the two eyes are not working together. The eye muscles are the culprits here as they are supposed to control the movement of both eyes. If they don’t, the eyes become misaligned and confuse the brain so that it struggles to merge what the one eye is seeing with what the other sees. This condition causes double vision, confusion and frustration for the child concerned.

New-born babies’ eyes often look misaligned and some are, but their eyes usually become aligned by the age of 3 to 4 months.

Symptoms

    • Eyes that are misaligned and do not look in the same direction at the same time
    • Squinting or closing one eye in bright sunlight
    • Turning/tilting the head instead of turning the eyes to look at something
    • Continually bumping into things
    • Sensitivity to light or double vision
    • Eyes that tire easily.

Causes

The causes are difficult to determine and childhood strabismus often has no known cause except that it sometimes runs in families.

However, there are a few things that may contribute or increase your child’s risk for strabismus such as:

    • Other vision problems such as farsightedness or a cataract that may prompt the eyes to compensate in some way or other
    • Premature birth
    • Down’s syndrome
    • Head injuries
    • Illnesses that affect the muscles and nerves.

Adult strabismus may be caused by eye or blood vessel damage, tumours (eye/brain), stroke, Grave’s disease and various muscle and nerve disorders.

Effective treatment options

Traditional treatment options include the following:

    • Wearing glasses
    • Wearing a temporary eye patch over the stronger eye to force the weaker one to become strong
    • Surgery on the eye muscles
    • Medication
    • Eye exercises.

The main aim of treatment is to get both eyes to look at the same place at the same time. With strabismus the brain receives two different images and because it is not able to merge these into a single 3D image, it will try to ignore or suppress one of the images. When the strabismic eye either turns in, out, up, down or a combination of these movements, the second image is neutralised.

Developmental optometrists believe that the secret to successful treatment is to study each eye separately to find out how it functions and then try to get the eyes to function as equally as possible so that the child is able to use both eyes together.

The second phase of treatment involves getting the brain to pay attention to the visual message received from the strabismic eye while both eyes are open. Although difficult, it is possible to teach the brain to do this and children will be encouraged to consciously try to use both eyes at the same time.

The third phase of treatment focuses on improving the function of peripheral vision. Peripheral vision is used to process what is going on around you while central vision concentrates on picking out the details. For example, while reading a book you will mostly be using central vision to see and comprehend the letters and words you are reading. Peripheral vision comes into play when you move to the next word, jump from line to line and also pay attention to what is going on around you. Children with strabismus often have great difficulty using both central and peripheral vision at the same time.

Once a child has mastered these skills it is a matter of practise, practise and practise to use both eyes together!

 

Sources
Three keys to effective strabismus treatment. 2012. Retrieved from: http://info.thevisiontherapycenter.com/discovering-vision-therapy/bid/84836/Three-Keys-to-Effective-Strabismus-Treatment.
What is strabismus? Retrieved from: http://children.webmd.com/tc/strabismus-topic-overview?page=2