Chopsy Baby is Reviewing… Vision Express eye tests for children
Chopsy Baby Says: “Children’s sight tests are free and can flag up serious health issues. Why wouldn’t you go?”
Rating: 10/10
What is it?
Vision Express opticians launched in 1989 and have more than 320 stores nationwide.
Reviewed by…
Jen Smith
The importance of children’s eye health seems to take rather a back seat at a time when diagnosing sight problems is at its most important.
“An eye test can not only reveal a problem with a child’s sight but could also flag up more serious eye conditions, including retinoblastoma, a rare form of childhood eye cancer,” says Joy Felgate of the Childhood Eye Cancer Trust.
According to findings by Vision Express, parents of 39 per cent of primary school aged children have never taken their child to an optician.
With 80 per cent of a child’s learning taking place visually and the most taking place before the age of five years, getting the sight of early years children tested is vital.
The National Screening committee recommends eye screening on children at the age of 4-5 years.
Poor eyesight when starting school could even be responsible for a whole future of behavioural problems.
If your child has started school this academic year and you are starting to notice something is not quite right, ruling out sight problems with a free test is the easiest place to start.
The Vision Express opticians in the Broadmead area of central Bristol, is an spacious, airy store which is easy to move around. All the frames are shelved on the wall and there is no danger of sending a rack flying with a Phil and Teds or over excited two-year-old.
We took a highly exciteable four-year-old boy for a sight test on a Saturday afternoon. The pristine shop itself was populated with friendly staff who clearly take customer satisfaction very seriously.
When running through optical pretesting, the assistant explained to the child what each machine was doing. When it came to mum’s turn, she invited the child around the rear of the machine so he could see exactly what was going on and why. He was thrilled when offered the chance to press one of the buttons – obviously not the one to test eye pressure.
When conducting the sight test, the optician was friendly and adopted her pace and approach to suit the child she was dealing with.
Instead of being confused with phonics, letters and sounds, the test used simple images the child could identify easily.
Best of all…
The child was involved and felt safe and confident through all stages of the test.
Could improve…
Nothing
Basically…
Fuss free sight test suitable for children age three years upwards
You can buy from…
Children’s sight tests are free on the NHS