Educating the educators: increasing grade-school teachers' ability to detect vision problems

The State University of New York College of Optometry/University Optometric Center conducts vision screenings in various public schools in New York City. A study was devised to determine whether teachers' abilities to detect vision problems in their students could be enhanced.

Students of two different grade schools were screened, in 1998-1999 and again two years later. In 1998-1999, the week before each group of students was to be screened, teachers were asked to indicate which children were felt to have vision problems. In 2000-2001, prior to the screenings, a lecture on vision and its relationship to learning was given to the same teachers who had responded two years earlier, and handouts and brochures delineating vision problems were also given to each teacher. A comparison was then made of the teachers' ability to detect vision problems before and after the teacher education.

In the first year, 111 of 377 of children screened (29%) were referred. Teachers correctly identified 39% of the acuity failures and 29% of the functional failures. Two years later, a total of 31% of children were referred. The same teachers correctly identified 68% of the acuity failures and 67% of the functional failures.

There was a statistically significant increase in the ability of teachers to correctly identify children with learning problems based on education. Both the accuracy of identifying children with acuity problems, as well as identifying children with functional visual problems, increased. Based on these results, it is recommended that an in-service lecture be given to school teachers to heighten their awareness of vision problems that may impact learning performance.