CRI听力:Poor Eyesight of Children

In Shanghai's Yangpu district, roughly 15,000 children between the ages of three and six from more than 100 kindergartens have received free eye exams this year. The results indicate that more than 17 percent of them have problems with their eyesight.

The district's Eye Disease Prevention and Treatment Center says the children are highly likely to develop myopic problems, as they grow older, including shortsightedness and astigmatism.

Doctors have found that most children with eyesight problem are those who often play games on computers or smart phones. Huang Wei is a local mother who says her child loves these games.

"My child is obsessed with software such as storytelling and children's songs as well as games like Angry Birds."

One kindergarten student says she has two computers, while her mother only has one.

Yangpu District's Eye Disease Prevention and Treatment Center says this figure is alarmingly high, as it's more common for such children to be farsighted until the age of 12 rather than shortsighted. Therefore, it's crucial that measures be taken to prevent such youngsters from developing poor vision.

Eye doctor Yang Jun says eyesight problems are usually caused by two factors - heredity and the objective environment.

"Certainly, the objective environment is very important. The object environment refers to the situations where children nowadays start to access iPad, game players and computers at early ages, or they start to learn piano and read musical notation at an early age. These cause children to easily develop problems with their eyesight."

Experts suggest that parents get their children more involved in outdoor activities to prevent them from developing vision problems caused by excessive computer or electronic-gadget usage.

Yangpu District's Eye Disease Prevention and Treatment Center says it plans to expand the study to students in every district of Shanghai next year.

For CRI, I am Zhang Wan.