dysTalk Video Games Tvs Amp Whiteboards Impact On The Eyes - Talks - dysTalk

About the speaker: Keith Holland qualified as an Optometrist in 1979, and spent the first part of his career working with Professor Charles Bedwell - one of the early pioneers of children's vision assessment. After being awarded Fellowship of The College of Optometrist in Vision Development in 1999, and was made the first ever life member of The British Association of Behavioural Optometrists in recognition of his contributions to eye care in 2001. Keith lectures internationally on eye care topics, and has published numerous articles in both the professional and popular press as well as appearing on both national and local TV and radio.

Further information about this Talk

Keith Holland's Website

Key Points Covered in This Talk:

Parents often ask about video games, computers, television and interactive whiteboards and what's right and what's wrong for children.

• Interactive Whiteboards: An interactive whiteboard can be a potent source of glare. For many children in the classroom the brightness of the screen can be a problem. Children with binocular vision are often more sensitive to glare than other children and will find that copying off the board can lead to strain. There are problems too when children are asking children to copy down from the board. In the days of blackboards a teacher could wipe off some of the material leaving the rest up for the children to copy. With an interactive whiteboard one click of the enter button and it's all gone. So teachers need to be aware of a child with copying problems or glare problems who might take longer working off an interactive whiteboard. As parents you need to make sure that all subject teachers are aware of your child's difficulties. Taking a printed slip into school with some highlighted information outlining this, that can then be distributed to all teachers can be more helpful than just telling a tutor who may not disseminate all the information across all classes. This is particularly relevant in secondary school. Make sure your child is sitting appropriately when using an interactive whiteboard so they are not getting glare or reflections from daylight through bright windows. Perhaps children need to ask for print-offs of information rather than copying. This allows children to concentrate on listening and taking in information rather than copying information off the board.
• Video games and computers: As a parent video games are a bane, but they are also very helpful in keeping children entertained. There are issues with the amount of time children spend on video games. They are sitting there, confined with relatively little movement. That is not what children are built for. Children should be outside being physically active because that's what develops the motor skills that are needed for learning. Whilst video games are a fact of society they should be rationed and really about 20-30 minutes at a time is the maximum, perhaps a little longer at the weekend. Children who are spending 2-3 hours engaged in interactive internet games are losing out. There are some newer games, such as the Nintendo Wii where there is physical movement involved (particularly when using the interactive balance board) which can be relatively good. There is much background lighting with video games so they should not be played in dark rooms without some background lighting.
• Television: When watching TV there should be other lights on in the room. Television is passive therefore a child is absorbing information without any physical demands being placed on them. 30-40 minutes is  a maximum for television watching. There are some exceptions to this with some of the splendid TV documentary series, dramas or a particular film to watch. But just passively flopping down after school for a couple of hours of television is not a good idea for your child.