Lions Club Using Vision Tool to Conduct Free Preschool Vision Screenings
By Editor at January 21, 2024 | 8:00 pm | Print
Volunteers from the New Britain Lions Club are spending time in New Britain schools to conduct free vision screenings for preschool children. The trained volunteers are using special equipment to identify common vision problems so that parents can see an eye doctor if needed.
Trained volunteers are using the PediaVision S08 Vision screen. It provides printed documentation of the results of each individual screening. The screener focuses the screening machine on the child’s eyes for a few seconds. The screening is done by a photographic process from a distance of three feet; there is no physical contact made with the child. In the span of just a second, 18 different photographs of the child’s eyes are taken.
The screening machine looks for the presence of eye disorders such as far- and near-sightedness, astigmatism (an optical defect in which vision is blurred), anisometropia (a condition in which the two eyes have unequal refractive power), strabismum (crossed eyes), ambliopia (lazy eye) and anisocoria (a condition characterized by an unequal size of the pupils).
All children receive a print-out to take home to their parents, showing the results. Parents of children with any identifiable vision problems receive a recommendation that they take their child to an eye doctor for a thorough vision exam.
“It gives the doctor insight into what they should be looking for,” said Lions volunteer Alan Daninhirsch, who volunteers with his wife and fellow Lions Club member, Judy Daninhirsch, and school volunteer Maureen Riley.
Lions Club volunteers have provided this service at Smith, DiLoreto, Gaffney, Chamberlain and Lincoln schools. This is the first year that the Lions Club has offered this service in New Britain schools through the Connecticut Lions Eye Research Foundation.
