AMBLYOPIA & STRABISMUS
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Understanding the impact of amblyopia and strabismus.
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Summary of impacts...
Depth Perception
Self-Esteem and Confidence
Amblyopia and strabismus can significantly affect a child’s hand-eye coordination, often due to reduced or lack of depth perception. Tasks like writing, catching a ball, or playing sports become more challenging as the brain struggles to coordinate what the eyes see with hand movements. These difficulties can persist into adulthood, impacting important tasks like driving, where accurate depth perception and coordination are essential.
Tracking Skills
Children with strabismus, or a noticeable eye turn, may experience challenges with self-esteem and confidence, especially when other children don't understand their condition. They may feel different or self-conscious about their appearance. Eye patching, often part of treatment, can further impact their confidence, as they may feel uncomfortable or embarrassed if others question why they’re wearing it.
Spatial Awareness
Tracking skills develop as children use their eyes to follow moving objects or read. With binocular vision problems, the eyes don’t work together consistently, so tracking remains underdeveloped. Even if reading improves, they may still struggle to keep their place or follow text smoothly because their eyes haven’t learned to track properly.
Amblyopia and strabismus can affect a child’s spatial awareness, making it harder to understand where objects are in relation to their body. This can lead to challenges with tasks like navigating obstacles, playing sports, and recognizing letter orientation. Poor spatial awareness may cause frequent letter reversals, like confusing "b" and "d," as the brain struggles to interpret letter positions. It can also result in clumsiness and difficulties with everyday activities.
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Misaligned eyes (one eye may turn inward, outward, upward, or downward)
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Frequent squinting or closing one eye to see clearly
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Head tilting or turning to try to use the eyes together
Poor depth perception (difficulty judging distances)
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Blurry or double vision
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Losing place or skipping lines when reading
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Avoidance of activities like reading or sports that require good vision
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Frequent bumping into objects due to lack of spatial awareness
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Slow reading speed or needing to re-read text frequently
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