The school year is well underway for most children. They are settling in with new teachers, new friends and new experiences. But for some students, an old problem will creep into their lives — vision issues.

These children will suffer from anxiety and the threat of falling behind academically and socially. What is frustrating is that a simple eye exam would change everything.

As an optometrist, I regularly see school-age patients and hear stories about children struggling with their courses, giving up playing sports or, worst of all, being misdiagnosed with a learning disability.

All this could easily change if the state Legislature passes the Children’s Vision Bill, which would require students to get a comprehensive eye exam. Students receive a traditional vision screening in school when they begin kindergarten. The test, however, is not performed by a licensed medical eye professional, and it tends to focus on distance visual acuity. Think of that chart across the room with the giant E at the top.

These vision screenings do not measure how well the eyes focus up close or work together, which is inadequate because 80% of learning for children is visual. What happens instead is that children’s vision issues go undetected, and they can be misdiagnosed as having a learning challenge.

Two examples from my practice come to mind. The first is a boy who, at 9, started suffering from headaches, stopped using a computer and became less interested in playing sports. His mom brought him to me because she worried his quality of life was suffering and didn’t believe people who simply said he had “eye strain.” It turned out his eyes were not working together, and because of that he had little hand-eye coordination. After completing vision therapy, his issue was easily fixed. He is now doing well academically and is even involved with video game competitions.

A second patient was skipping lines when he read in first grade, and he couldn’t hit a baseball. It turns out he also needed vision therapy, and now is one of the top readers in his class and a strong hitter on his baseball team.

What these two students have in common is that they passed the school eye exams with flying colors. One in five preschool-aged children has an undetected vision problem that is not caught by school eye screening.

Studies show that vision exams by licensed eye care professionals, such as optometrists and ophthalmologists, are better able to test for comprehensive vision issues than school-based eye screenings. The American Optometric Association found that school vision screenings miss up to 75% of children with vision problems.

The Children’s Vision Bill, which has received bipartisan support in the General Assembly, calls for comprehensive eye screenings by licensed vision professionals.

The legislation, Senate Bill 720, sponsored by Sen. Chris Gebhard, and House Bill 1078, sponsored by Rep. Johanny Cepeda-Freytiz, is backed by the Pennsylvania Optometric Association. This measure will help kids get back on track academically and boost their self-confidence.

The way the legislation would work is much like the requirement that students receive basic physical and dental exams before the start of elementary and high school. The bill sets a schedule for school-age children to receive a vision exam, from an optometrist or ophthalmologist, at key milestones in their education — kindergarten, fourth grade and eighth grade.

I think about all the students and adults who have fallen through the cracks. How their lives could be different if they had discovered they had a correctable vision issue. Lawmakers can make sure no more of these students are left behind by passing the Children’s Vision Bill.

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