School Nurses Receive Training to Detect Vision Disorders in Children

BALTIMORE — Recognizing recent studies that indicate vision problems affect the learning abilities of 25 percent of school age children, the Maryland State Department of Education has joined with the Maryland Optometric Association (MOA) to help train school nurses so they can more effectively detect childhood vision disorders.

Doctors of Optometry belonging to the MOA are providing a series of free vision screening training sessions for the nurses. The first session of nearly 40 school nurses was held in late August. Two more sessions are planned for September and Oct. They will take place at the Faulkner Ridge Staff Development Center in Columbia.

"While the most thorough method of detection would be a full examination by an optometrist or ophthalmologist," said Dr. Thomas Wong, an optometrist in Rockville, "it is important that vision screeners know how to detect some of the more significant conditions. Traditional vision screenings often miss these conditions because school nurses get very little training on the proper way to perform the tests."

The MOA's training sessions include both lecture and hands-on experiences. The project is part of optometric profession's "Healthy Eyes Healthy People" initiative to improve the vision health of the community.

MOA's president-elect, Dr. Lisa McGinn of Towson, who was a nurse prior to becoming an optometrist, developed the idea of training the school nurses. "With 80 percent of all learning during a child's first 12 years of life is done through the visual process, we wanted to assist the school nurses so that they could better detect problems early so that proper treatment could be given."

School nurses who participated in the MOA's first training session remarked that they had learned how to screen younger children, facts about common vision problems, eye anatomy and Maryland vision screening laws.

During the training session, the MOA provided the nurses with a toolkit to use at their respective schools. The Association is also planning to purchase equipment for a number of school districts that need to update their screening supplies.

###