Question
My 8 year old son had an eye exam at school and they sent a letter home stating he has a eye muscle balance deficiency, what does this mean? He currently wears glasses for reading. Thank you.
Answer
With all due respect to your school screeners, if your son already has glasses AND has had an eye exam within the last year, his eye doctor most likely would have told you if there were any concerns regarding his eye muscle balance.
Often the screeners in schools are not trained eyecare professionals. In the best cases, they may be nurses but more likely are non-health care provider parents volunteering to help out. In fact, I remember when my kids were in school and the request came out for screening volunteers, they specifically would not allow a health care professional to volunteer. This was for legal reasons.
So these volunteers are only capable of administering a screening test and have been taught the criteria for passing versus failing. Anyone who "fails" one of the tests is expected to see an eyecare professional for an actual diagnosis.
That being said, if your school requires you to see a vision care professional because of this screening, you will have to return to the eye doctor to get the form signed.
But you were asking "what is an eye muscle balance deficiency?" That is a case when the eyes do not team well together. For example, the eyes may have a more natural position of rest other than straight ahead. They may more naturally "want" to turn in or turn out. This will require extra effort on the part of the patient to keep the eyes pointing straight ahead. But there is no screening test that can be done in a school setting that determines whether this type of condition is severe enough to require help. Only an eye doctor can determine this during the eye exam.
In another example, the eyes may have a deficiency in holding the nearpoint focus, making it difficult for the person to read for any period of time. We already know your son has this problem to some degree since he already has reading glasses.
If your son's exam is recent and you do not have to hand back a signed form to the school telling them how you have resolved the problem with the eye muscle balance, AND your son is doing well academically, I would not go running back to the eye doctor about this, but would question the eye doctor carefully about your son's eye muscle balance when his next exam is due.
