Why Did a Pediatrician Refer Your Child?
A pediatrician is usually the first person a parent tells when something feels off — an eye that drifts, a screening that didn’t go well, homework that takes three times longer than it should. Here are the three reasons pediatricians across South Florida send families to us.
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What Your Pediatrician Noticed
A referral is good news, even when it doesn’t feel that way. Whether it was an eye turn, a failed vision screening or a behavioral concern, a developmental eye exam is often the simplest next step toward the answers you came in looking for — and your pediatrician knowing to ask for one is why you’re here instead of waiting another school year.
A vision screening is a short test, and it is only built to catch one thing: distance acuity. It does not measure whether the two eyes point at the same word, whether they can hold focus through a page of reading, or whether they track a line of print without losing the place. A child can pass every screening they’ve ever had, read the 20/20 line without hesitating, and still find near work exhausting. Eyesight and visual skills are two different jobs.
We work together with health professionals across South Florida — pediatricians, eye doctors, psychologists, OTs, PTs and teachers — to get each child to the person who can help them best. Are you the referring provider? See our resources for pediatricians or send us a referral.
What They May Have Seen
Most pediatrician referrals to our office fall into one of these three groups. Choose the one that sounds like your child.
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Lazy Eye
Amblyopia or Strabismus
One eye sees less clearly than the other, or one eye turns in, out, up or down — all the time, or only when your child is tired. Glasses alone often don’t settle it, because the two eyes have stopped working as a team.
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BVD
Eye Teaming, Eye Focusing, or Eye Tracking Deficits
Binocular vision dysfunction: the eyes are healthy and the eye chart is fine, but they don’t aim, focus or move together comfortably. Words blur, double or swim after a few minutes of reading.
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Failed Vision Screening
Acuity
Your child couldn’t read the line they were meant to read, or covered an eye, squinted or guessed their way through the chart. A screening measures acuity at distance; the next step is an exam that measures the rest of the visual system.
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If the concern was school rather than the eye chart, start with vision in the classroom. Not sure which one fits? Take the symptom survey or browse every problem we work with — the evaluation sorts it out either way.
From Referral to Report
Book a developmental vision evaluation
Bring whatever your pediatrician gave you — the screening result, a note, or just what they said in the room. Tell us who referred you when you book so we can send the findings back to the right office.
We test what a screening doesn’t
A vision screening checks acuity: can this child see the chart. A developmental evaluation measures how the two eyes work together — eye teaming, eye focusing, eye tracking, depth perception and visual processing — alongside eye health and refraction. See what an evaluation looks at.
Your pediatrician gets the findings
We send the referring provider a report on everything we tested, whether or not we find something, so the next conversation in their office starts from real numbers rather than a guess.
If something else is going on, we say so
Not every struggling child has a vision problem, and vision therapy isn’t always the answer. We work together with health professionals across South Florida to get each child to the person who can help them best — including back to your pediatrician.
Worth Reading First
- What school vision screenings miss Which visual skills a pass/fail screening was never designed to measure.
- Is your “20/20 vision” child still struggling in school? Why a clean screening and a struggling reader are not a contradiction.
- Comprehensive eye exam vs. developmental eye exam What each one measures, and which one your pediatrician was asking for.
- Meet our graduate: Daniel A pediatrician sent his parents to a developmental optometrist. Here’s what happened.
- What is vision therapy? How a program works, week to week, if the evaluation shows it’s indicated.
Take the Referral the Next Step
The evaluation is where the question gets answered: we measure exactly which visual skills are working and which aren’t, then send your pediatrician the findings either way. Offices in Coconut Creek, Boynton Beach, Boca Raton and West Palm Beach.