At Children's Eyecare, your vision is our primary concern. We offer vision correction for eye diseases and disorders which prevent you from enjoying the world around you. We specialize in the treatment of children's vision problems such as lazy eye, learning problems, and focusing problems.

Our vision correction services aren't just about clear vision - they're about healthier vision. That's why we offer a variety of treatment options, including glasses, contact lenses, laser vision, and vision therapy.

We are happy to provide you with some basic information about various vision correction options that are available at our practice. Select from the following list or scroll down the page to learn more.

Childrens Vision and Learning

Did you know that 80% of everything a child learns, understands, and remembers is acquired through his or her visual system? Vision is very important in the learning process. What's worse is that one in four children have undiagnosed vision problems that affect their learning. Sometimes the problem is misdiagnosed as ADD (attention deficit disorder), ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), or dyslexia.

It is important that children receive comprehensive visual exams starting as early in life as possible (infantsee and 3 or 5 years). Vision screenings at school are not sufficient as a basis for diagnosing vision problems. A comprehensive exam may find a visual problem missed during screenings, and your eye doctor can recommend treatment.

Your child may suffer from a visual problem if they exhibit any of the following characteristics:

• struggles with reading
• grows tired or frustrated with reading
• can't sit still or stay at a task for any length of time
• reverses words, numbers, or letters
• has difficulty remembering the spelling of words
• frequently loses their place, skips words, or skips lines of text while reading
• has poor reading comprehension
• has shown no improvement from medication or tutoring

Children suffering from uncorrected vision problems may face many barriers in life - socially, academically, and athletically. Make sure your child's vision is developing well.  Please setup an appointment today by calling our office at 708-403-0123.

Refractive Procedures

Laser Vision Correction procedures (Lasik and PRK) are becoming more popular as treatment options for myopia and astigmatism. We can determine if you are a good candidate by conducting a full, dilated exam and pre-operative evaluation. We can also provide a referral to a specialist and answer any questions you may have regarding the procedure.

Post-operative care is critical for achieving the very best possible visual results. We will evaluate the surgery, assess the corneal integrity and develop a post-operative examination schedule to follow up your laser correction procedure.

What are Refractive Procedures?

Refractive procedures manipulate the eye to improve vision. Though there are several types of refractive procedures, the most popular is known as LASIK (laser assisted in situ keratomileusis). LASIK involves reshaping the cornea using incisions and lasers. An incision creates a flap which is folded back. Lasers are then used to reshape the middle layer of the cornea and correct the vision. The flap is folded back and allowed to heal, resulting in much clearer vision.

Is LASIK For Me?

Not everyone should consider a LASIK procedure. Candidates should be over 18 years of age. If you are pregnant, nursing, or suffering from a number of diseases, you probably are not eligible for LASIK. You are also not eligible if your prescription has changed a great deal over the past year. Talk to your eye doctor about LASIK. They will be able to assess your eligibility, the risks you may encounter, and they can recommend how to move forward.

Is the Procedure Safe?

In rare cases, there have been complications that have arisen after the procedure, including droopy eyelids, constant discomfort or the inability to wear contact lenses. In even rarer cases, there have been complications during the procedure. However, as technology improves, there will likely be a decrease in these instances.

back to top

InfantSee

Cooing, sitting up and crawling are signs that your baby is growing. Your baby's vision has stages of development too, but ususally there are no signs to mark the progress. The American Optometric Association encourages parents to include a trip to the optometrist in the list of well baby check ups. Assessments at six to tweleve months of age can determine healthy development of vision. Early detection of eye conditions is the best way to ensure your child has healthy vision for sucessful development-now and in the future.

InfantSee™ is a public health program designed to ensure that eye and vision care becomes an integral part of infant wellness care to improve a child's quality of life. Under this program, our member optometrists will provide a comprehensive infant eye assessment within the first year of life as a no cost public health service.

Sports Vision

"Keep your eye on the ball!" "Focus on the finish line!" "Don't lose sight of the green!" If there's one thing that seems to be a key to success in sports, it's vision. But did you know you can improve your performance by improving some aspects of your vision? It's easy to recognize problems, and even easier to solve them. The following are some aspects of vision which can be the difference between victory and defeat, and some exercises to improve performance.

Dynamic visual acuity is your ability to see objects when they are moving fast. This is important in sports like hockey, racquetball, and tennis. To improve dynamic visual acuity, cut out letters, stick them to a record turntable, and try to identify the letters at different speeds.

Visual concentration is your ability to ignore distractions happening around you. Your eyes naturally react to movement in the field of vision from spectators, other participants or the playing environment. To improve your visual concentration, have a friend stand nearby and wave their hands erratically while you practice.

Eye tracking is following an object with your eyes without much head motion. It is important with any sport that involves a fast-moving ball. Good eye tracking will improve balance and reaction time. You can improve your eye tracking by watching the flight of a ball while keeping a book balanced on your head.

Eye-hand-body coordination is how your muscles and limbs react to the information gathered by your eyes. It affects timing and body control. To improve your eye-hand-body coordination, jump up and down on an old mattress while a friend tosses you a tennis ball from a variety of angles. Catch the ball and toss it back.

Visual memory is the ability to process and remember a fast moving, complex picture of people and things. It is very important in basketball, hockey, and soccer, where the game quickly moves up the field. Visual memory helps you know where your teammates and opponents are positioned. To improve visual memory, look at a magazine page for a second, then turn the page. Try to reconstruct the images you just saw. When you have mastered the exercise, allow 5 seconds between seeing the image and reconstructing it.

Peripheral vision is the ability to see what is not directly in front of you, out of the corner of your eye. This allows you to see your teammate to your left or right while focusing on the goal in front of you. To make your peripheral vision more useful, try watching television with your head turned to one side or the other.

Visual reaction time is what allows a batter to hit the ball, or a tennis player to return a serve. It is the speed with which your brain interprets and reacts. To improve your visual reaction time, stand with your back to a friend. Have them toss a ball to you and yell, "Now!" When you hear the yell, turn around and try to catch the ball. By repeating this exercise, you can teach your brain to react more quickly.

Focus flexibility allows a quarterback to quickly focus on his receivers even though they are at varying distances. To improve focus flexibility, post a magazine page on a wall about 15 feet away at eye level in front of you. Hold a similar page in your hand out in front of you, so that it is slightly to one side of your view of the page on the wall. Focus on an object or words on the page on the wall. Then quickly switch focus to the page in your hand. By switching focus back and forth, you will improve your focus flexibility.

Depth perception lets you judge distance. This is especially important in basketball, golf, and other sports involving distance to the goal. To improve depth perception, have a friend point a straw at you, parallel to the ground, with the straw about two feet away from you. Practice quickly inserting a toothpick into the straw.

By improving aspects of your vision, you can improve your performance, no matter what sport you're involved in.

Vision Therapy

Though some vision problems can be treated using corrective lenses, many require a different kind of treatment. Vision therapy is a series of activities or exercises prescribed and monitored by an optometrist to treat problems with visual skill and processing. After a comprehensive eye exam, your eye doctor may determine that vision therapy is the best option for treatment. Vision therapy programs are based on the results of standardized tests, and the needs of the patient.

Vision therapy can effectively treat eye movement disorders, inefficient eye teaming, misaligned eyes, poorly developed vision, focusing problems, and other visual information processing disorders.

Recommended Links

• Vision Therapy.com
• Children's Special Needs
• Children's Eyes Foundation
• optometrists.org
• vision3d.com
• strabismus.org
• add-adhd.org
• visiontherapy.org
• children-special-needs.org
• braininjuries.org
• dearabby
• visiontherapystories.org
• convergenceinsufficiency.org
• lazyeye.org

Dry Eye Relief

Dry Eye is a commonly occurring problem that leaves patients complaining of burning, irritated eyes.

After conducting a tear film analysis, we can diagnose dry eye and determine a treatment option that is best for you.