No abstract

According to current estimations, globally, there are around 150 million people with an uncorrected refractive disorder, which means 27% of the world’s population. Approximately 1.4 million of these are children and have a milder or more severe form of visual dysfunction secondary to refractive errors. Since 1990, refractive errors are considered to be a public health problem among children and cause visual dysfunction, with a prevalence of up to 43%. Vision maturation occurs in early childhood, when all the senses and motor skills work together to acquire language, first ideas about the environment and all the elements that define the person himself. Sight is a contributory perceptual system for the cognitive, social, sensory-motor development and for the assemblage of information about the environment. In the first years of life, the child increasingly discovers complex activities, requiring the ability to change the eyes fixation in space from one point to another and a normal binocular motility.

Children with special needs face many eye problems that should be promptly addressed. Many eye diseases can be treatable if discovered in infancy. There is data showing these children have a higher prevalence of refractive errors than their non-disabled peers. If diagnosed and treated promptly, refractive errors can provide a good quality of life for special needs children.