
MORE than one-half of the total time of school health personnel is spent in vision and hearing conservation programs in States such as Massachusetts, where annual screening of all children is mandatory. Since enormous amounts of labor are required in extensive screening with the methods now generally in use, it is most desirable that other methods of screening children for sensory impairments be devised as soon as possible. Not only is the number of persons to be tested great, but also the testing needs to be made more reliable, as the results of the well-known study conducted by the U.S. Children's Bureau in St. Louis in 1948 have shown (1). Vision screening in recent years has become much more complex. We now speak of testing not only for visual acuity but also for such functions as latent hypermetropia, heterophoria, and color discrimination. Wherever testing is both complicated and mandatory, nurses or technicians spend a good part of their working time in screening. This concentration of effort leads inevitably to fatigue since screening for sensory impairments is extremely repetitive and monotonous when carried out, as is usual, throughout the school day. Anyone familiar with screening programs in schools will surely agree that the efforts of highly trained professionals are not well spent on such tedious activities. The introduction of mechanized units, which will overcome tester fatigue and provide more consistent, more uniform, and more valid tests of the screened population at a much lower cost per test, is past due. An automated vision screener, however, in no sense replaces the school nurse. Rather, it enables the nurse to spend more time in more appropriate functions, such as visiting the homes of impaired children, completing arrangements for medical care, and discussing the visual condition of children with classroom teachers.
Hyperopia, Massachusetts, Vision Tests, Methods, Vision Disorders, Humans, Mass Screening, Child, School Health Services
Hyperopia, Massachusetts, Vision Tests, Methods, Vision Disorders, Humans, Mass Screening, Child, School Health Services
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