Vision is a learned ability. Like toy building blocks, vision skills are build and as the child grows these skills are naturally developed one after the other. Vision skills can be demonstrated in situations where they are called for. For example while reading, a child may be able to read individual words, but if eye-coordination skills (the ability to track words across a page) is poorly developed, then it becomes very difficult to read complete sentences. Fortunately eye-coordination is easy to train.
The following describe the normal stages of vision development.
Infant - the first four months
Newborn babies can see patterns of light and dark as well as shades of gray. Initially newborn can only focus about 25 cm just enough to see mommy's face. Soon infants begin to follow moving objects with their eyes, tracking and eye-coordination start to develop. They also begin to reach for objects deveveloping their eye-hand coordination. At four months babies can see colors.
The babies now learn to push themselves up, roll over, sit and scoot. Eye and body coordination develops as they learn how to control their own movements in space. Four to six months old babies become quite skillful with their eye-hand coordination and are able to grasp toys freely or direct a bottle to their mouth.
By the forth month the baby has finished learning how to fuse the images coming from each eye into a complete three dimensional image. Spatial and dimensional awareness when reaching for an object. Baby continues to refine their eye-coordination and focusing skills. They learn how to quickly and accurately shift between near and dar objects. A child's normal vision or 20/20 has usually developed at about six months when they begin to babble.
Most children start to crawl at this time, further developing their eye-body coordination. At this age babies also discover how to set visual goals, seeing something and moving to get it. This is a time of great exploration and many new experiences. There is ra[id development of visual perception skills as the baby experience their own bodies in relation to other objects and they begin to notice differences in size, shape, and position. At eight months babies have developed fairly accurate eye-movements.
Babies now can judge distance well. Eye- and hand-coordination allow them to throw toys fairly accurately. Perception skills such as visual memory and visual discrimination, the ability to determine exact characteristics and distinctive features among similar objects or forms. This helps babies make sense of their world. Vision and fine motor movements are now developed enough so they can manipulate small objects. They can begin to feed themselves with finger foods. Once children start walking, they learn how to use their eyes to direct and coordinate their body movements. At twelve months babies begin to say "Mama"and "Dada."
Children's vision continues to develop. As toddlers, it is important for them to continue the development of eye-hand and eye-body coordination. Such games as staking building blocks, rolling a ball, coloring, drawing, cutting and assembly of toy building blocks. Reading to children develop their visualization skills as they picture the story in their minds. At age 6 most children have fully developed vision.
As children grow up they spend a more or less equal time looking at things close and far away using all the visual skills in equal measure. School, on the other hand, require children's eyes to focus on close work for extended periods every day. As they progress in their academic learning there is more and more emphasis on reading and close work. In some cases this lead to vision problems such as near sight or myopia. Others develop far sight which may lead to eyestrain. Poor eye-coordination is the leading cause of reading problems.
Therefore it is important to preserve children's natural clear vision and introduce vision training exercies when appropriate to bring back the natural vision.
- remember, clear eyesight is a birth right.