Vision Screening in Very Young Children-Making Sense of an Inexorable Diagnostic Process.

The current issue of JAMA includes guidelines for vision screening in young children. The guidelines are thorough and evidence-based. Simply condensed, vision screening is recommended for children older than 3 years; however, the evidence was insufficient to recommend for or against screening for children aged 6 months to 3 years. Screening offers detection of amblyopia (child has eyes with different refractive powers and/or strabismus), high refractive errors, and even anisocoria (unequal size pupils) in patients often unable to self-identify a problem. The proliferation of screening tools underscores the importance, both medical and financial, of screening.