Sight is might for Chicago Heights boy

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Dwayne Burgess reads at his home in Chicago Heights, IL on Thursday December 1, 2011. Dwayne has been legally blind since he was six months old and now uses his new Optelec MultiView video magnifier to help himself read. | Matt Marton~Sun-Times Media

What you can do

About 25 percent of school-age children suffer from low-vision problems that can significantly hinder their performance in school and in life, experts say. According to the American Academy of Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus, age-appropriate vision screening should take place throughout childhood to prevent that. The American Optometric Association advocates eye exams for children at 6 months of age, ages 3 and 6 and then every two years after that.

Illinois requires vision exams for all preschool students aged 3 and up as well as for students entering kindergarten, second grade and eighth grade and all special education classes. Vision screening is recommended for students entering fourth, sixth, 10th and 12th grades.

While some health insurance plans provide for vision exams, others do not. Free eye exam locations can be found at www.uniteforsight.org/freeclinics.php.

Sight Savers America helps provide vision education, screening, exams and care for low-income children and their families, while Spectrios Institute for Low Vision helps treat those with low-vision problems at all income levels. Both are in need of monetary donations to keep helping those with low-vision problems; Spectrios also encourages volunteers at its Wheaton and LaGrange facilities and at its events.

In addition, Sight Savers is in need of donated closed-circuit television (CCTV) devices, which provide video magnification enabling users to read, write, draw, paint, do crafts and tasks, perform personal grooming and see faces. Legally blind senior citizens or their families often buy the devices — which retail for about $2,300 — to help those seniors live independently. But once that individual passes away, used CCTVs often get shoved away in an attic, Sight Savers America president and CEO Jeff Haddox said.

“We’ve pulled them out of garages, we’ve pulled them out of closets, and believe me, there’s tens of thousands of these out there, just forgotten now that the original owner is gone,” Haddox said. “It would be a huge help if families donated them to us so we could recycle them — there are probably 2,000 kids in the Chicago area who could use them.”

To help Sight Savers, call (877) 942-2627, visit www.sightsaversamerica.org or e-mail info@sightsaversamerica.org.

To help Spectrios, call (630) 690-7115, visit www.spectrios.org or e-mail info@spectrios.org.

Joanne Von Alroth

Article Extras

Updated: January 12, 2012 8:00AM

There is much in the world around him that 9-year-old Dwayne Burgess can’t see clearly on his own: Faces. Objects. Words. Trees.

Dwayne has been legally blind since a bout with hydrocephalus at 6 months of age damaged his optic nerve. But you wouldn’t know it as he reads a book out loud for a visitor. Or when he offers to take a picture.

That’s thanks to his new Optelec MultiView video magnifier. The closed-circuit television (CCTV) unit is specially fitted to help those who struggle with low vision magnify images up to 79 times their normal size on an attached 19-inch color screen.

For many, the device allows them to clearly see what previously was a blur or even invisible — users can read, write, paint, draw, do tasks or crafts, perform personal grooming or see people’s faces.

“Here, let me take your picture, and then I can put it up on the screen and see what you look like,” he said, grinning as he demonstrated the CCTV in the front room of his family’s Chicago Heights home with the nimble dexterity of a typical tech-savvy kid.

A few quick tweaks of the control buttons, and the visitor’s face pops up on the large screen, eliciting a delighted laugh from its young operator.

“There you are! See, it makes things bigger, and changes color if I need to see something better when it’s a color I don’t really see,” Dwayne said. “I can take pictures of people’s faces and see them up close. I can read my books by myself or game instructions. I can see trees, with their leaves. It’s a big change.”

“It really is a huge change,” agreed Dwayne’s mother, Nyesia Perry, noting that while Dwayne uses a CCTV at his school, Eastview Elementary in Chicago Heights, he struggled at home without one. “He used to use a telescope to help him see, but it wasn’t easy. Now that he has the CCTV here, it boosts his confidence. Instead of him having to run to me or his big sister to help him, it’s ‘I can do it myself, Mom.’ And he does. He’s so proud.”

The change is courtesy of Sight Savers America, a nonprofit organization that promotes vision care and secures low-vision aid and treatment for children in need. In a joint venture between Sight Savers, Optelec U.S. Inc. and the Wheaton-based Spectrios Institute for Low Vision, Dwayne and seven other children in Chicago, Elmhurst and Hickory Hills with low-vision problems all received the MultiView CCTV for home use, Sight Savers spokeswoman Linda Long said.

Spectrios, which provides rehabilitation for low-vision individuals, found the children through its school programs. Sight Savers and Optelec donated the devices, which retail for about $2,300. The cost isn’t covered by insurance. Sight Savers also trained the children and their families in the devices’ use and transport.

The CCTVs will “provide the children a means to stay connected with their families and peers,” Optelec President Stephan Terwolbeck said.

In addition to the devices, Sight Savers will conduct thrice-yearly vision checks and follow-up care for the children and their families until each CCTV recipient is 19.

“The device can do amazing things for them, and the follow-up care is to make sure everything’s working right,” Long said.

The desire to make sure everything’s working right on the vision front is the reason Jeff Haddox founded Alabama-based Sight Savers in 1996. Haddox, now the organization’s president and CEO, said it was while working as a vision scientist that he realized children’s vision problems were ruining their lives.

“People don’t connect the dots,” he said. “Not being able to see well means you can’t read well, which means you don’t do well academically, which often results in acting out. That puts you on the wrong track; then there’s continued acting out, and you end up with a criminal record because you have poor vision.”

The numbers back him up: About 85 percent of all learning is visual, yet undiagnosed vision problems strike one of every four American students, according to a 2002 study conducted by the American Foundation of Vision Awareness. The study also found that 70 percent of all children declared delinquent by the courts had uncorrected vision problems. Such vision problems can lead to a cycle of school failure, which is the biggest predictor for future criminal behavior, according to a 2001 report issued by the Washington, D.C.-based Coalition for Juvenile Justice.

Vision problems go undiagnosed because the eyes can appear deceptively healthy, or parents or caregivers can’t afford proper screenings, Haddox said. Children also often are unaware of a problem: Their blurry vision is normal to them if they’ve always had it.

“Parents don’t typically realize their child has a vision problem until they try to show their child something and it comes out that the child can’t see it,” he said.

In Dwayne’s case, the realization that he had vision problems came swiftly and terribly.

“One day we took him to day care, and I noticed a change in him —he wasn’t as lively,” Perry said. “The next day, he was worse, and we took him to the hospital, and it was hydrocephalus (a build-up of fluid in the brain). They still can’t tell us why it happened, but at least we’ve known about it and he got help at school.”

Which is a big advantage, said Mary Jordan, Spectrios’s director of pediatrics and its “Seeing is Believing” program. Jordan reached out to special education teachers and combed through school records to find the neediest low-vision students to award the CCTVs. She hopes Spectrios’s two-year-old joint venture with Sight Savers will be able to aid thousands more children in Illinois.

“Given the finances in the state right now, you’re not even reaching the kids who need this equipment in their classrooms, much less at home,” Jordan said. “There are so many children who could benefit from it.”

Dwayne is already clear on how he’ll benefit from the device.

“This is going to help me do really good in school, and then one day I can go to college to do the things college kids do,” he said. “Now I can see regular stuff like a regular person.”