Child eye test, Visual acuity readings, how bad are they ?

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Posted in Children's health about this but more traffic here. 4 year old DD got her eyes tested at nursery today and when I collected her I was given a referral letter as she had failed the test and needs to be seen by an optition. It had very little information other than her visual acuity readings which were 0.325 (R) and 0.425 (L) . Anyone have any idea how this converts to the 20/20 scale and how bad they think her eye sight is ?

We're going to the optition on Tuesday to get them checked there.

Thanks.

I'm an optician, it works out to be about 6/12 and 6/18. It's difficult to say why, it may be she has a prescription that needs correcting, or it could just be she didn't feel very cooperative! Fwiw, I see quite a lot of kids from school testing that see quite a lot better than the letter says they do because they've got distracted during the test at school, or gone shy. Having said that, if there is a problem, it's better picked up now than later. Hth.

Thanks. How bad is that ? What % of vision does she actually have ?

She doesn't wear galssess or anything just now, it was a pre-school check that she had done today. I spoke to her about it and she told me how they used a patch and she had to match pictures. DD did tell me that she couldn't see some of them so couldn't match them. So I think she was taking part in the test and it's accurate.
Thinking back though she at times does say that the light is too bright for her eyes and occassionally says her head hurts which at the time I just didn't think was anything really but getting this letter makes me think it is.

It's difficult to express it as a percentage really. Most 4 year olds can see 6/9 ish, so she's a little below average. It may be that she needs glasses to help her but the optician will be able to tell you once they've examined her. The hospital eye department will probably see her too to be on the safe side.

It is my understanding (I am NOT an optician) that a lot of preschool children are a bit farsighted which corrects itself with age?
And that an acurate assessment of visual acuity can only be made after eyedrops have been used to 'paralyse' the eye?

If it was a standard nursey sight test and you have ongoing concerns I would get a formal eye test done at an opticians. Or get her referred to the NHS optometrist.