Children's vision--a 20/20 outlook

Twenty years ago, A. M. Skeffington, O.D., talked about the "uniqueness" of optometry which included prevention, remediation and enhancement. Fifteen years ago, Arnold Gesell, M.D., urged optometry to pay attention to the preschool years and to examine and supervise (with optometric expertise) the vision of these children and to learn to identify those children who would present difficulties in learning. At the same time, Darell Boyd Harmon, Ph.D., suggested that optometry "gear up" for an expected avalanche of visually-related learning problems. Optometry did listen and learn, the avalanche is here and developmental optometry has prospered. This paper briefly explores some of the long and short-range benefits of vision therapy.