Manitoba Vision Screening Study

Abstract

It would be preferable if every child had a professional eye examination prior to entering school and every two years thereafter. This ideal is rarely realized. As a second choice, a vision screening program to identify high-risk children should be a part of a school district's comprehensive screening program. The purpose of this article is to describe Manitoba's program, detailing organizational strategies, instrumentation, and results of a study designed to measure the effectiveness of the screening process. The results of the study indicated that two-thirds of the children identified by the vision-screening process as high-risk children required professional care, or that some incipient condition was present.