Poor vision in the child

The main causes of blindness and poor vision and their frequency are different 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 the ophthalmic pediatric service. The prevalence of child blindness in the world is about 1.3 million, visually impaired people - 5.2 million people. The blindness level of children is 1.6, visibility is 3.5 (per 10 000 children's population).

Severe visual disturbances are the result of a congenital and hereditary pathology caused by a number of endogenous factors: adverse heredity, infectious diseases of the mother and fetus during pregnancy, pathological course due to toxicoses and nephropathy, complications during the period of delivery (asphyxia, birth trauma), prematurity. The health of the fetus is affected by the harmful habits of parents, the impact on their body of adverse household and production factors. In the nosological structure of childhood disability due to ophthalmopathology, malformations predominate (26.4%), congenital cataracts - 17.3%. Retinopathy of prematurity and other retinal pathology - 16.6%, optic nerve disease - 12.0%. Eye injury - 10.5%. Often the appearance of visual disturbances is caused by several etiological factors that form the combined forms of ocular pathology.

Poor vision in children is more difficult than in people who have lost full vision in old age. Children differ from adults with disabilities by the polymorphism of disorders, that is, the combination of a visual defect with hearing impairment. Pathology of the musculoskeletal system, diseases of the internal organs, among which pathological changes in the respiratory system predominate. Twice more often somatic pathology is observed in neuropsychiatric disorders, which are associated with hypoxic-ischemic brain damage. Perinatal CNS lesion 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. The fuzziness of perception negatively affects the recognition of letters, a letter that distinguishes children from adult visually impaired people who can write without visual control. Formed representations are incomplete, vague, unstable and often erroneous, suffer visual-shaped, visual-auditory and visual-motor types of memory, which makes it difficult to master the material. All this affects the formation of thinking and speech. Secondary abnormalities can enhance the primary defect, that is, low vision is exacerbated by limited experience in its use.

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