Sophie Salaita had her vision screened earlier this year by the Lions Club. That screening showed a problem, which an ophthamalogist diagnosed as amblyopia, or lazy eye. Photo courtesy of Mike Salaita.

It took Mike and Deb Salaita only a minute or two to read, sign and return the consent forms Crossroads Academy sent home, giving the Lions Club of Kingsport permission to conduct free vision screenings on their two young children.

But that small investment of time yielded a big payoff for the Church Hill couple's 5-year-old daughter Sophie, whose amblyopia, or lazy eye, was diagnosed in time to treat it.

A few weeks after the Lions visited Crossroads with their special photoscreening camera, which can detect six major eye disorders in youngsters who aren't yet old enough to read an eye chart, the Salaitas got a note from the preschool that said Sophie appeared to have a vision problem.

Two-year-old Lake's eyes looked fine.

A volunteer with the Tennessee Lions Eye Center at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital in Nashville, where the photos are sent for examination, followed up with a phone call to make sure the Salaitas had arranged for Sophie to have a complete eye exam.

"I told the lady, ‘She can see airplanes at 30,000 feet. There must be a mistake,'" Deb said, "but sure enough, they were right."

A visit to Kingsport ophthalmologist Tony Seaton confirmed that Sophie had amblyopia, which occurs when the vision in one eye is reduced because the eye and the brain aren't working together properly.

"When you do the eye exam and they have the great big E, that's all she could see," Deb said. "The doctor said that she probably didn't know that she had a problem either, because her other eye was compensating for the one that didn't see as well."

Catching amblyopia early is important because up until about age 8 or 9, a child's vision system is "plastic," making problems easier to correct. After that, amblyopia typically can't be fixed.

The first step in treating amblyopia is getting a clear picture to the eye, which often involves fitting the child with glasses. Doctors must then force the brain to attend to the weaker eye, which is done either by patching or using dilation drops in the stronger eye.

Since her first visit with Seaton, Sophie has been fitted with glasses and wears a patch over her weaker eye four hours a day.

"Her vision has improved in that bad eye a lot," Deb said. "It really blows my mind."

As of January, Tennessee Lion volunteers had screened more than 145,000 children for visual disorders as part of the KidSight outreach program. More than 6,700 were referred to an optometrist or ophthalmologist because of suspected vision problems, and of those who received complete eye exams, about 4,700 had either amblyopia or amblyogenic factors and were properly treated.

Each year, Kingsport Lions screen about 400 children between the ages of 1 and 5 at daycare centers, Head Start programs, preschools and other facilities in Kingsport and western Sullivan County.

The screening doesn't involve eye drops or direct contact with children's eyes, but parents must sign a consent form allowing their son or daughter to be screened by the trained Lions Club volunteers, said Joe Greenwell, who coordinates the Kingsport club's photo screening program.

"Sometimes we're lucky if we get 50 percent back," he said.

Deb believes many parents just get so busy that they forget to sign and return the forms or that they simply overlook them in the stacks of papers their preschoolers bring home.

But she highly recommends parents consent to having their children screened, even if they believe their youngsters see just fine.

"If you think your child has 20/20 vision because they don't miss anything, they're seeing things that you can't see, trust me, you better get it checked just to make sure," Deb said.

For more information about KidSight or to schedule a screening, call Doug Haseltine at (423) 239-9178.

FOOTNOTE: It is with sadness that we present an update to this article.  Joe Greenwell passed away this year and is greatly missed in our community and within our club.  The role of coordinator for the photo screening is now held by Lion Doug Haseltine.