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What Is the Visual Acuity of 4th Graders?

Visual acuity in children becomes more relevant and diagnosable around age 10, when students are in their fourth grade of school. It's estimated that between 20 to 26 percent of children in this age group have some defect of vision in at least one eye. Many factors contribute to such acuity, such as genetics, race and gender.

  1. Gender Differences

    • Visual problems are more common in girls than in boys, with roughly 23 percent of girls afflicted as compared with 20 percent of boys. For both genders, the visual acuity increases about 1 to 2 percent if the child has already reached puberty. Girls are more afflicted at this age than boys because a greater number of them have entered puberty. The greatest visual affliction of both genders is myopia, commonly known as near-sightedness, although other afflictions have been reported as well.

    Socioeconomic Differences

    • Some studies show a slight increase in visual problems among children in lower social classes. However, this increase is slight -- usually about a 0.5 to 1 percent increase but not more than 4 percent -- and is not a consistent finding in studies. Typical studies show that myopia is the most common condition afflicting students in lower socioeconomic ranges with amblyopia (commonly known as "lazy eye") also present but much less prevalent. Despite the slight difference in findings, there does not seem to be any specific link between visual acuity and social placement.

    Uncorrected Impairments

    • Another common cause for poor visual acuity in fourth graders is previously uncorrected refractive error. Refractive error is the umbrella term for myopia, hypermetropia (far-sightedness) and astigmatism, which are generally defined as the inability of the eye to correctly focus light on the retina. Because children in this age group often do not recognize symptoms of poor eyesight (unless severe), problems can go undiagnosed for long periods of time. Lack of diagnosis then leads to a worsening of symptoms until the issue is finally presented to a doctor and treated accordingly.

    Genetics

    • Many eye conditions are genetic and carry a great likelihood of being passed along to children. The 10-11 age range is generally when many of these conditions are diagnosed, as symptoms are typically discovered in the classroom or during social activities. Common genetic disorders include cataracts, which affect approximately 1 in 250 children of affected adults, and glaucoma, which has a rate of 5 to 16 percent transmission from affected parent to child. Crossed eyes are another affliction that can have a transmission rate as high as 40 percent.

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