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Comment by jraph | Hacker News Reader

This study finds that eyeglasses for school kids with vision impairment help.

Just from the title I wondered if school kids with eyeglasses performed better than school kids without eyeglasses (and whether eyeglasses gave some self-confidence, or if vision impairment somehow made affected kids more studious, or some shit like this). I was surprised. It's not that. The actual result presented by this article seems far less surprising to me (still interesting even if my first reaction was well, duh - some studies are here to turn "well, duh"'s into actual knowledge).

I suggest changing the title to "Eyeglasses for impaired school kids boost academic performance, study finds" (and even dropping "study finds")

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My mom was called stupid her entire first school years until somebody thought to test her eyes.

I somehow slipped through the UK eye-test system with -5 astigmatism until the age of 12.

I was 12 when I first saw a leaf on a tree.

wow the system really dropped the ball on this one

Supremely curious: as a 12 y/o, did you assume everyone struggled getting around, always?

Yep!

I had an eyetest in primary school, I couldn't read anything. Looking back on it years later I assume she thought I was joking or else just royally cocked-up!

It left me with some strange cognitive coping strategies - like I would always dictate what the teacher was saying rather than reading it off the board.

The offshoot is I have very poorly formatted but fast handwriting!

That's funny, I didn't have nearly as bad eye sight, but also distinctly remember first noticing leaves on trees when I got my glasses around that same age.

I think I assumed everyone saw trees as they're commonly drawn and painted: as just a blob of green

I remember that first "OMG people can see things further than 20 feet away!?!" revelation.

I failed high school algebra largely because I lost my glasses and was just trying to imagine in my head what the teacher was talking about. The adults in my life knew I had a prescription, and had the money to pay for them and yet nobody did anything. The bystander effect is truly bizarre.

Unfortunately, there are large groups of people who will say things like "why help poor kids get glasses". Studies like these allow someone to put "$N in leads to $M out, M > N" equations in place to justify it.

Who says that?

I assume you're asking who needs numbers relating to academic performance to justify helping poor kids? I don't know if you missed US politics from 2017-2021, but the President's Budget Chief (and later Chief of Staff) (Mick Mulvaney) said “[the US government feeding poor kids is] supposed to help kids who don’t get fed at home so they do better in school, Guess what? There’s no demonstrable evidence they’re actually doing that. There’s no demonstrable evidence they’re actually helping results, helping kids do better in school.”

Then he proposed cutting the budget for school lunches. The Secretary in charge also did a number on those programs.

I only realized I needed glasses at 16 (and only started at 17), who knows how long I've been complaining the whiteboard markers are done and needed to be replaced. it's like living with gaussian blur filter.

I discovered mine at 13 when we went on vacation and I said "wow, the TV reception is bad here".

It was fine; our TV at home was just a lot closer.

> whether eyeglasses gave some self-confidence, or if vision impairment somehow made affected kids more studious, or some shit like this

Being studious causes vision impairment. We noticed that a long, long time ago.

I don’t know, there could be all sorts of confounders there. Like maybe poor eyesight means you’re not as good at sports which means you tend to focus on more studious hobbies like reading.

Or maybe reading and spending time inside tends to ruin your eyesight. Or maybe it does, but only because it takes time away from active pursuits like sports!

Does anyone have pointers to research that teases out the causes and effects here?

https://www.nature.com/articles/519276a

This is a nice summary.

https://www.nature.com/articles/519276a

It's less being studious, and more that being studious tends to be correlated with spending time indoors more. It's the spending time indoors that causes it apparently.

> It's the spending time indoors that causes it apparently.

Not quite. It’s the lack of spending time outdoors.

Mixed together with (sometimes purposely) neglect of body and lots of reading small text with bad light conditions.

actually it's only the light part. recent studies from South Korea and Australia find, that lack of light exposure causes vision impairment

Not only that. It really helps your eyes to look at other things and more importantly, at things at different distance.

Plenty of studies for that, too.

(not strictly for "outside" though, you can also look out of the window regulary, it is so that your eyes refocus and relax )

Do you have a source? Everything I've read gave me the impression that we only have strong evidence that outdoor time is a factor, and the light exposure explanation is just a hypothesis.

I agree with the title change. It's quite misleading, especially if they are referring to the kids who have vision impairment.

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