The Maben Lions Club did sight screenings on 577 students from three area schools recently and found problems in 65 of them.
Some of the students screened already wore glasses and were being seen by a professional. These students are counted in the number of students who were referred for professional testing.
This year the Maben Lions invited Louisville and Columbus East Lions clubs to come help us test so that we could include kindergarten and first grade in the testing. Typically, this type of screening can not only “see” acuity problems, but can also detect physical problems like “lazy eye” that is not detected with our ordinary Optic 200 testing machines.
On Sept. 18 five Maben Lions went to West Oktibbeha County Elementary School in Sturgis to test all the students K through 5 who were given permission to be tested by their parents. One hundred twenty-four students were tested and 17 were referred for professional testing.
Thirty-five kindergarten through first-graders were tested by a new machine that reads the ability of eyes through the iris from a distance of about 3 or 4 feet. These students didn’t have to read a chart of letters to be tested. All they had to do was to focus their eyes onto a clown picture on the front of the machine and the PlusOptix machine did the rest.
If the student had a problem the machine printed out a “prescription” to be taken to a professional eye specialist. The specialist will be able to use this printout to guide further testing.
The Louisville Lions Club owns one of these PlusOptix machines and was gracious enough to come to Sturgis to do this testing.
All the other testing was done with our regular sight screening machines operated by Maben president Shawn Nygard and Lion Marlene Thomas. Scores were recorded by Lion JoAnn Ford. Lions Jane Collins and Joe Ann Williams were instructed in the use of the PlusOptix machine when testing kindergarten and first-grade students.
On Sept. 19, the Maben Lions Club went to East Webster Elementary School in Mathiston to screen all students kindergarten through fifth grades. Again, the Louisville Lions Club brought its PlusOptix machine to test kindergarten and first grade. The second through fifth grades were tested with our regular machines by president Shawn Nygard and Lion Nellie Blade.
In all, 354 students were tested with 36 referred. Lions Jane Collins and Patricia White assisted the Louisville Lions and JoAnn Ford again recorded the scores of the students.
On Sept. 20, Lions Pat Harpole and Jane Collins went to Hebron Christian School to meet Lion Andy Kalinowski of Columbus East Lions Club, who brought its PlusOptix machine.
All the students kindergarten through eighth grade were tested with the PlusOptix machine. We tested 99 students and referred 12 for further testing. These students were given the printout from the machine to aid the professional in his testing.
Earlier in the year in August our branch in Chickasaw County did a sight screening at Houston Elementary School testing all the kindergarten students with the new machines, borrowed from Columbus East. One hundred seventh-one were tested and 21 were referred in that instance.
The Maben Lions Club is grateful to the volunteer Lions who assisted us with the use of their special machine.
