Making Glasses for Kids Used to Be Very Difficult

（This entry ended up a very lengthy one with so many sentences, so you don't need to correct them all. Thank you!)

You Westerners often have farsightedness, so you wear convex lens glasses, which make your eyes look larger. In contrast, Japanese people often have nearsightedness, so we wear concave lenses, which make our eyes look smaller.

If a child's farsightedness is overlooked, they won't be able to see well both far and near, which significantly affects the development of their vision. Therefore, it is essential to be careful not to miss farsightedness. On the other hand, nearsightedness means poor distance vision but good near vision, so it does not adversely affect the development of vision itself. It is often noticed when the child cannot see the blackboard from the back of the classroom, but this can be somewhat resolved by moving their seat to the front.

In my case, perhaps because my mother was severely nearsighted, my parents worried that I might be nearsighted when I was in my last year of kindergarten. As a result, I ended up having a detailed examination at a university hospital in Osaka, which was very far from my town. This happened 60 years ago. Nowadays, my nearsightedness and astigmatism could be assessed with computer measurements, but back then, the test was only using the Landolt rings (symbols that look like the capital letter "C" with a gap where the black ink is partly missing on a circle).

For a five-year-old, this test was quite challenging. When instructed to "tell the direction where the circle is missing," I couldn't understand the meaning of "missing" in Japanese. Additionally, I wasn't very familiar with distinguishing right from left. Even if I could vaguely see a "C," if I answered "right," it would have been fine. If the upper and lower parts of the circle were fainter and the sides darker, I could have thought about which was thinner and answered "up" or "down" based on an educated guess. However, if I saw a blurry "C," I would respond with "I don't know," leading to a significant underestimation of my vision.

Since the answers could be "up," "down," "right," or "left," I should have had a 25% chance of getting it right even if I guessed. However, as a child, I didn't even know if there were eight choices like "upper right" or "two o'clock" on a clock face, or twelve choices. Moreover, as a child, my concentration didn't last long, and I gradually became tired, which affected the reproducibility of the test.

Eventually, I got a prescription for glasses, and a week later, when I went to pick them up and had my vision remeasured, there was hardly any improvement in my vision. I remember the doctor and my parents being disappointed.
Lol

あなた方、欧米人の方は、「遠視」のことが多く、凸レンズのメガネをかけるので、目は大きく見える。日本人は「近視」のことが多く、凹レンズをつけるので、目が小さく見えることになる。
子供の「遠視」を見落とすと、遠方も近場も両方よく見えないので、「視力」の発達に重大な影響をおよぼすから、「遠視」を見落とさないように注意する必要があるが、「近視」は遠方視力は悪いが、近場は良く見えるので、「視力」自体の発育には悪影響はない。学校にいって教室の後ろの席のときに黒板が見えないことなどで気が付くが、教室の席を前の方にしてもらうことである程度解決できる。

僕の場合は、母親がド近眼だったこともあってか、なぜか、僕が幼稚園の年長の時に、僕が近視なのかもしれないと両親が心配して、結果的には、大阪の大学病院で精密検査をすることとなった。60年前のことで、今ならコンピュータ計測で僕の近視や乱視の具合が評価できるのだが、当時は、ランドルト環（アルファベットの大文字のＣのような記号で、円周の中の黒いインクが欠損している方向を見る検査だった。
5歳の子供にとってその検査はハードルが高かった。「円の欠けている方向を言ってください」といわれて、日本語の「欠けている」という意味が理解できなかった。
また、右と左がどちらなのかをよく覚えていなかった。また、ぼんやりとでもＣと見えれば、「右」と答えればよく、円の上下の方が薄くて左右は濃ゆい場合には、上と下のより薄い方がどちらか考えて、半ばヤマ感で「上」とか「下」と答えるようにすれば、良いのに、Ｃと見えていてもぼやけている場合は、「わからない」と答えたので、視力が相当過小評価されてしまった。
答えは「上」「下」「右」「左」の4通りなので、ヤマ感で答えても、25％は正解になるはずだが、子供の僕にとっては、「右斜め上」とか「時計の2時方向」等、8通りあるいは、１２通りのチョイスがあるのかどうかも分からなかった。
また子供にとって集中力は長くは続かず、だんだん疲れてきて検査の再現性も失われていった。

結局メガネの度数を処方され、メガネを作ってもらって、1週間後に取りにいって視力を再測定したけど、ほとんど視力の改善がなく、医者と両親ががっかりしていたのを覚えている。