When to Have Your Child’s Eyes Examined
The Canadian Association of Optometrists (CAO) recommends that children undergo eye exams to match their visual milestones. During every exam, we’ll check your child’s visual development, assess their ocular health, and look for signs of childhood eye conditions.
Infants & Toddlers
When your child is between 6 and 9 months, they should receive their first eye exam. It is during these months that your child will gain muscle control and start developing hand-eye coordination. This first eye exam will also look for issues like turned eyes (strabismus), lazy eyes (amblyopia), high refractive errors (glasses), cataracts, and most importantly retinoblastoma.
Preschool Children
Your child should receive at least one eye exam yearly between 2 and 5. These are incredibly formative years as learning and development are heavily tied to vision at these ages.
Before your child starts school, an eye exam will check that their eyes are developing properly and treat signs of vision problems that could affect them academically.
School-Aged Children
Your child will rely on their eyes more and more as they progress through school. As they’re in school, your child should have annual eye exams to monitor for changes to the vision, diagnose and correct refractive errors, and uncover potential eye diseases.
