I just wanted to highlight a new report by our charity SeeAbility. Our second Children in Focus annual report 28 times more likely, has just been published. So named because our sight testing research estimates children with learning disabilities are 28 times more likely to have a serious sight problem than other children.
More information on our report can be found here with data kindly analysed by Cardiff University’s School of Optometry and Vision Science.
In the last academic year (September 2014 – July 2015) we visited special schools to provide eye care for 258 pupils, dispensed 87 pairs of glasses, and provided 261 sight tests. We found:
• Over half of children we tested had a vision problem
• 43% of the new pupils we saw this year had no history of eye care
• 85% of those discharged from hospital eye clinics had no follow up community eye care
• 75% of the children with no history of eye care were noted as having autism
• 36% of the children we saw needed glasses
We have made some new videos too about two of the children who have benefited from our sight testing and glasses dispensing with a particular focus on autism, and why children with autistic spectrum disorder may miss out from accessing community optical care or hospital eye care.
We are calling for a new national programme of sight testing in special schools and the new data is helping us campaign towards this goal. A lot more on our website is www.seeability.org/childreninfocus and do let me know if you would like to find out any more about this work or share thoughts.