Dr. Glen Steele, a practicing optometrist and a pediatric optometry educator, begins by explaining what is Autism? He states that it’s a development disorder that ranges in severity. We learn about the high prevalence of Autism, currently, 1 out of 54 people are described as having Autism.

Autism includes a vast majority of individuals who range anywhere on the spectrum. Patients who have Autism may have difficulty in social situations, which may also be a challenging situation for the immediate family of these patients.

Though we may not be responsible for diagnosing a patient with Autism, the exceptionally high incidence would often allow us an opportunity to have them as a patient. The key to conducting an eye exam for someone with Autism is effective communication. Dr. Steele mentions that there is no standard protocol for engaging a patient with Autism.

However, it is up to the practitioner to come up with ways to interact with the patient. We learn in-depth how changing the child’s environment in our clinics would likely elicit incite a response from such individuals. He describes an inexhaustive list of communication pearls with patients on the Autism spectrum disorder 

Once we interact with the patient, we should conduct the routine eye exam with particular attention to certain aspects like ocular motility and pupil responses. The following is a list of points that we must pay attention to while performing the eye exam.

1. Pupil response 
   1. Pupil size 
   2. Abnormal pupillary reflex 
2. Blink reflex 
3. Gaze development 
   1. Atypical response to direct gaze 
   2. Gaze behavior 
   3. Gaze following 
   4. Gaze aversion 
   5. Gaze development 
   6. Self-directed gaze
4. Attention 
   1. Joint attention 
5. Oculomotor function 
   1. Eye movements 
   2. Eye-tracking 
   3. Fixation on faces 
   4. Looking at eyes and faces 

Dr. Steele concludes with the most common problems with Autism diagnosis and how to tackle it. He also stresses the importance of optometrist involvement in the management of such patients. He gives a few tips on how to engage and manage such children. The session ends with an interesting question and answer session with the live audience.

References

Papers

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