Poor eyesight in a child

The main causes of blindness and poor vision and their frequency vary in different regions of the world, which is due to a number of factors (socioeconomic, demographic, geoclimatic, etc.), as well as the level of medicine and, in particular, the state of ophthalmo-pediatric services. The prevalence of childhood blindness in the world is about 1.3 million, visually impaired - 5.2 million people. The level of blindness in children is 1.6, low vision - 3.5 (per 10,000 children).

Severe visual impairment is a consequence of congenital and hereditary pathology caused by a number of endogenous factors: unfavorable heredity, infectious diseases of the mother and fetus during pregnancy, its pathological course due to toxicosis and nephropathy, complications during childbirth (asphyxia, birth injury), prematurity. The health of the fetus is affected by the bad habits of the parents, the impact of unfavorable household and industrial factors on their body. In the nosological structure of childhood disabilities due to ophthalmopathology, malformations prevail (26.4%), congenital cataract - 17.3%. retinopathy of prematurity and other retinal pathology - 16.6%, diseases of the optic nerve - 12.0%. eye injuries - 10.5%. Often, the appearance of visual impairment is caused by several etiological factors that form combined forms of eye pathology.

Poor vision in children is more complicated than in people who have lost full vision in old age. Children differ from disabled adults by the polymorphism of disorders, that is, the combination of a visual defect with hearing impairment. pathology of the musculoskeletal system, diseases of internal organs, among which pathological changes in the respiratory system predominate. Psychoneurological disorders associated with hypoxic-ischemic brain damage are observed twice as often as somatic pathology. Perinatal damage to the central nervous system has a negative effect on both refractogenesis and the formation of central vision among young children, which leads to impaired perception, underdevelopment of higher mental functions. The stock of visual representations in visually impaired children is insufficient. and their weak differentiation in memory leads to inadequate perception of images. Blurred perception negatively affects letter recognition, writing, which distinguishes children from visually impaired adults who can write without visual control. Formed ideas are incomplete, vague, unstable and often erroneous, visual-figurative, visual-auditory and visual-motor types of memory suffer, which makes it difficult to learn the material. All this affects the formation of thinking and speech. Secondary deviations can strengthen the primary defect, that is, poor vision is aggravated by limited experience of its use.

For more accurate perception of objects by visually impaired children, recognition of objects of the external world and development of a stock of visual representations, special means of correction of visual impairment are used: optical and optoelectronic devices. They are intended for partial compensation of limitationsto training, work activity, self-service, orientation.