what does 6/18 mean in DS1's school eye test?

[sylar]

DS1 (4) has had his school medical today and the notes say that he has 6/18 vision in one eye and 6/9 in the other and we are advised to see an optician. Is this bad? I have no idea what it means!

bumping because I can't find anything I understand on the internet!

anyone?

sounds like they have done a quick test with a snellen chart, which is the letters chart with the big A at the top and the smaller letters at the bottom. 6/6 is normal vision, with the first number denoting the distance of the person from the chart (always 6m) and the second number is the size of the smallest letter the person can read (so the bigger this number is, the worse the vision is).

If i remember correctly the 6/9 line is the line above the 6/6 one, and i think the 6/18 line is maybe the fourth one down, the one with four letters. Hope this makes sense, maybe someone with more knowledge than me will be along to help.

He might need glasses, or it could be completely inaccurate. 4 yr olds are not easy to test! although they prob used a similar chart with pictures instead of letters.

from googling it looks like they use the snellen scale so 6/18 would mean your lo can see the letters at 6 metres away which others would be able to see at 18 metres away.