We recommend exams at 6 months, 3 years, before starting school, and then every two years. Children who have additional risk factors for development of eye or vision problems should be seen more frequently.

Risk Factors:

– Were premature, of low birth weight or needed oxygen at birth

– Have a family history of eye disease, or significant prescriptions

– Have an eye turn

– Are developmentally delayed

– Are not meeting their potential in school

– Have frequent headaches

– Don’t like to read, or avoid reading

– See double

Ensure you talk with your child prior to their appointment.
Discuss your own exam experiences. Describe what it will look like in the room, the sequence of events moving through the clinic, and even play act being the doctor and patient. This ensures a positive experience.

Do prepare for some “chair-time”. A comprehensive ocular examination for kids is typically a 60 minute appointment. Don’t worry if they get hungry or need a break – we got the snacks and quick breaks are fine! 

Even if your child cannot read or identify letters, we are specialized in adapting optometric techniques and use objective tests that enable us to determine a need for prescription and ensure proper ocular development.

CHECKING IN:

A laptop to fill in history and life questionnaire

Choose your charity

Then feel free to browse our studio until called

INITIAL TESTING BY TECH:

Auto-refraction to estimate the power of the eye digitally

Reading of current glasses prescription

THE EXAM ROOM:

A thorough history of the child’s development will be discussed. Each exam will be tailored to your child. All children should have a dilated exam as they have a tendency to over focus their eyes and can “disguise” a higher prescription. The strong dilation drops are required to relax their focusing system and uncover their true prescription. With the drops, their near vision will be blurred for 4-6 hours and they will also be more light sensitive. During the 30-45 min that it takes to dilate, you can go for a walk, or eat a snack in our office. At the end, we will discuss our findings and corresponding treatment options.

Our Pediatric Comprehensive Exam includes:

Visual Acuities: How clearly they can see in the distance and near

(this is the only thing checked during school or pediatric screenings)

Refraction: for best distance and near vision, this may include a glasses RX. We recommend dilation for pediatric exams as children are able to adapt and mask true rx’s.

Color Vision: 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women are affected by color deficiencies

Testing Pupils: ensuring healthy and equal pupil constriction and dilation

Eye Tracking, Muscle balancing, and Range of Motion: the ability for the eyes to accurately track a target (like a ball) or accurately jump from one image to another (reading in a book from left to right without jumping lines or loosing their place)

Testing of Binocular Vision: how eyes work and coordination as a team, ensuring a single image and measuring depth perception

Testing of Focusing Strength: how accurately and efficiently a child can shift their focus from far to near or near to far (White board to notebook)

Eye Health: Examination of retina, optic nerve, and overall health. In children it’s important to check for proper development by 6 months and again at 3 years, to avoid potential long lasting eye conditions like amblyopia.

Optional additional examinations may include Contact Lens Fitting, Ortho-K Therapeutic fittings, Myopia Control,and Visual Efficiencies Evaluation. Most of these evaluations require additional time and need to be discussed with our doctor to see if they will work for your child.

We have all the cool kid frame brands ranging from Miraflex for babes to the hottest brands for teens. Our impact resistant lenses are top of the line digital lenses, making their prescription perfect for them.

 Added options include anti-fatigue lenses for relaxing eyes for near tasks, blue light filtering lenses to filter high frequency blue light rays, anti-glare coatings with anti-scratch technology to reduce reflections and scratches (includes a 2 year scratch warranty) and filter UV, Transitions for UV activated tinted lenses, and all the needed adjustments, nosepads, and fixes children will need.

Your purchase is always protected with our guarantee. If you don’t love your glasses because of comfort or vision, we will refund you in total.

Some kids and teens prefer to not wear glasses, some want a different look each day and some find contacts easier for sports. Anyway you wear them, we have the best Optometrists who know the best contacts for your kids eyes.

When can your child get contacts? Each child learns at their own pace and that is true of contact lens wearing, too. Oftentimes, many children are ready about the time they are taking care of their own hygienic needs without reminding. We ensure to train both child and parent on insertion and removal prior to going home. So no need to fret!

Luckily 80% of vision problems can be corrected by glasses, however, it’s not always 20/20 vision that is the underlying issue. Our optometrists may recommend a Visual Efficiency Exam (VEE) with our residency-trained Pediatric Vision Therapy Optometrist. Each VEE is tailored to their needs, but may include further assessment of eye tracking, eye teaming, eye hand coordination, visual perception, and sensory motor evaluation.

Symptoms that can be related to visual dysfunction:

• Sitting close to the TV or holding a book too close.
• Losing your place while reading
• Difficulty copying from the board
• Headaches
• Squinting, covering an eye, or tilting their head
• Words appear to move or float on the page
• Covering an eye.
• Frequently rubbing their eyes.
• Short attention span for the child’s age.
• Turning of an eye in or out.
• Double vision
• Difficulty with eye-hand-body coordination when playing ball or bike riding.
• Avoiding coloring activities, puzzles, and other detailed activities.

You Need to See it to Believe it. Corrected vision for kids without glasses or contacts! For some kids, glasses or contacts are not the best solution to vision correction.

Through Ortho K, or Orthokeratology, by use of rigid contact lenses, very small changes to the shape of the cornea are made while your child sleeps. For some, significant changes to the overall eye prescription can be produced to correct vision. Also, studies show fitting Ortho-K Lenses for children may slow down the progression of nearsightedness. The effects typically last between 24-48 hours, after which the cornea returns back to its original shape.

 Myopia Control is the daily use of atropine eye drops that help slow the development of nearsightedness. This treatment often means the continued use of glasses.

Ortho-K and Myopia Contral can work well for many patients, however, it may not be the best option for all.
Make sure to talk to your child’s doc to see if these options might suit your kid.

Dr. Angela To, OD, (FFOA) has done a residency in Pediatrics & Vision Therapy, taught Pediatric and VT classes at Optometry at Illinois College of Optometry, supervised students examining children, and is passionate for children to see clearly! Only 2.6% of eye docs go on to train in pediatric optometry through residencies (post-graduate training) and only 10% of eye docs go on to complete a rigorous fellowship. In other words, Dr. To is one of the top of the top kids eye docs, not only in Portland but across the country.

Qualifications: anything kids and eyes 💯
Not to mention her Optometric degree from Illinois College of Optometry (ICO), Residency in Pediatric Optometry and Vision Therapy at the Southern California College of Optometry, Faculty time at ICO teaching and supervising students, and also an examiner for the Pediatric Eye Disease Investigator Group (PEDIG). But wait, there’s more! She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Optometry (AAO) and a consultant for the Accreditation Council on Optometric Education. She has also presented a workshop at the national AAO meeting.