Students receiving eyeglasses through a school-based initiative scored higher on reading and math tests, found in the largest clinical study of the impact of glasses on education ever conducted in the US. Students struggling the most academically showed the greatest improvement.
The study by Johns Hopkins researchers from the Wilmer Eye Institute and School of Education is published in JAMA Ophthalmology.
“We rigorously demonstrated that giving kids the glasses they need helps them succeed in school,” said senior author Megan Collins, a paediatric ophthalmologist at the Wilmer Eye Institute. “This collaborative project with Johns Hopkins, Baltimore City and its partners has major implications for advancing health and educational equity all across the country.”
The team studied students who received eye examinations and glasses through the Vision for Baltimore program. The effort was launched in 2016 after an acute need for vision care among the city’s public school students was identified: as many as 15 000 of the city’s 60 000 pre-K (age 2 to 4) through 8th-grade (age 13 to 14) students likely needed glasses though many were unaware or were unable to get them.
Over five years, Vision for Baltimore has tested the vision of more than 64 000 students and distributed more than 8000 pairs of glasses. The Johns Hopkins study represents the most robust work thus far evaluating whether having glasses affects a child’s performance in school.
The three-year randomised clinical trial, conducted from 2016 to 2019, analysed the performance of 2304 students in grades 3 to 7 who received screenings, eye examinations and eyeglasses from Vision for Baltimore. The team looked at their scores on standardised reading and math tests, measuring both 1-year and 2-year impact.
After one year, reading scores increased significantly for students who got glasses, compared to those getting glasses later. There was also significant improvement in maths for students in primary grades.
There were particularly striking improvements for girls, special education students, and students who had been among the lowest performing.
Megan Collins, senior author said, “The glasses offered the biggest benefit to the very kids who needed it the most – the ones who were really struggling in school.”
The gains were about the same as two to four months of extra education compared to students with glasses, said lead author Amanda J Neitzel, deputy director of evidence research at the Johns Hopkins Center for Research and Reform in Education. For students performing in the lowest quartile and students in special education, wearing glasses equated to four to six months of additional learning.
“This is how you close gaps,” Neitzel said.
However, the academic improvements seen after one year were not sustained over two years. Researchers suspect this could be a result of students starting to wear their glasses less, perhaps from loss or breakage.
To keep up the academic achievement boost, the researchers recommend that school-based vision initiatives should also try to ensure children are wearing the glasses and to replace them if needed.
Source: Johns Hopkins University
