Pediatric Primary Care

Pediatric Primary Care provides vision care to patients 18 years of age and younger.

All of the family practice services provided to older patients are available to children through the Pediatric Primary Care service. Doctors in this service area are particularly trained in the special needs of infants, pre-school and school-aged children. Many are nationally recognized as experts in pediatric vision, vision therapy and learning-related vision disorders. 

The exam will continue to look at the teenager’s visual skills for school.  In high school, visual demands increase with the volume of reading and computer use increasing.  Additionally, the examination will address the patient’s extra-curricular visual needs, especially for sports.  

Healthy vision is an important part of any child’s overall well-being. Diagnosing and treating vision disorders is critical for children to properly develop and use good vision. According to the American Public Health Association and the American Optometric Association, between 10-25 percent of school-age children have eye or vision problems. School-age children also depend on good vision in order to perform well in the classroom and at play. Your children’s vision is important, so an eye examination should always be on the checklist for starting school each year to diagnose or correct a vision problem.

The visual process begins development very early in life. If your child is to reach his/her full potential, this guidance must begin quite early. Evaluation of the developing visual process includes assessments of ocular motility or eye movement control, binocularity or the ability to effectively use both eyes together, refractive status (farsightedness, nearsightedness, and astigmatism), visual acuity (ability to see detail) and ocular health.

The areas evaluated are consistent with that of younger children. However, children in this age range can respond to higher level testing techniques. The emphasis in this age range is higher level guidance of your child's developing visual process with special consideration of preparing for the visual requirements necessary for school.

Your child is now in school and the examination is directed toward your child’s daily visual requirements in the classroom. With each ensuing year, these daily classroom visual requirements will substantially increase. Our assessment will determine if your child has the visual ability to meet the expectations.

Children 12 months and younger may receive a no-cost, comprehensive eye assessment, thanks to a program called InfantSEE®. Developed through a partnership between the American Optometric Association (AOA) and The Vision Care Institute of Johnson & Johnson Vision Care Inc., InfantSEE® is a nationwide public health program to provide no-cost professional eye care for infants in their first year of life, regardless of income.

At The Eye Center, a large number of our optometrists are registered InfantSEE® providers. Parents or grandparents who wish to obtain a no-cost assessment for their infant through The Eye Center at SCO may call (901) 722-3250 for an appointment. For more information about this national program in which The Eye Center participates, visit www.infantsee.org online.