BETHESDA, Md., Jan. 27 (UPI) -- Children with uncorrected farsightedness performed poorly on preschool literacy tests, leading researchers to question whether prescribing glasses for younger children can prevent later deficits in education and reading.
Moderate farsightedness, or hyperopia, does not have a significant effect on general sight and many children don't know the difference, so they don't complain, researchers said.
There is not a large amount of research on the effects of hyperopia on early reading and learning development, in addition to a lack of agreement among doctors on how to handle it, leaving researchers without an easy recommendation for parents.
Between 4 and 14 percent of preschool children have hyperopia. Concern for these children is high because visual lessons, including vocabulary, phonics, and reading, are essential for continuing education in kindergarten and first grade.
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"These differences are meaningful because formal learning for many children begins in the preschool years," said Dr. Marjean Kulp, professor in the College of Optometry at Ohio State University, in a press release. "In addition, other research exploring the long-term effect of early deficits in literacy has shown them to be associated with future problems in learning to read and write. This makes early detection of these problems important."
Researchers working on the study, published in the journal Ophthalmology, recruited 492 4- and 5-year-olds, 244 of whom were farsighted and 248 of whom had normal vision. All of the children were given the Test of Preschool Early Literacy, which includes subtests on print knowledge, definitional vocabulary, and phonological awareness. None of the children in the study wore glasses.
The researchers reported children in the study with hyperopia performed worse on test than those without, and the lowest scores were in children with worse near vision or decreased depth perception.
Having seen the difference in performance, and considered previous research that sight problems can cause later educational issues if not addressed, researchers said further studies need to be done to see if prescribing glasses improves the children's scores.
"This study is helping answer questions about which children we need to be concerned about," Elise Ciner, a professor in the Pennsylvania College of Optometry at Salus University, said in a press release. "It doesn't have all the answers, but is beginning to shed more light on how we should approach moderate uncorrected farsightedness in this age group."
