One of the areas where I differ to some degree from some of the professional opinions out there is in the effect of smaller amounts of farsightedness (hyperopia) in children.  The crux of the disagreement rests in the compensation for farsightedness.  

If you are farsighted, you work your focusing to compensate for that farsightedness.  It requires effort.  The hangup for many doctors is that kids have the ability to make that effort to clear up what is seen.  So, let them work their focusing and make things clear.

My problem is that kids spend a lot of time looking at close things – books, papers, screens, screens, phones, screens, and then there’s screens.  That is a lot of time with the focusing working.  Can the focusing do that?  For many kids, yes.  But, there is a potential price to be paid in fatigue.  The vision research shows that with fatigue, eye aiming gets sloppy and the correction for any error gets slower.  With fatigue, eyes get slow and sloppy.

So, my question is, why not try to take some of the load off the focusing and see if we can reduce the amount of slow and sloppy?  Some may not be interested in glasses to take the load off the focusing, and that is certainly their right, but it’s a question at least worth asking.

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