Mid-century educators and parents understood the need for reliable vision and hearing testing for young children. Everyone agreed that the best approach was to test children in the classroom. However, there were problems with this idea. One problem was a lack of funding.
No funds for the examinations were provided. In the teacher’s district, there was no full time physician or nurse in charge of the school health program. The county health officer ducked the job. In the end, each teacher was told to check her own students.
The January 1951 edition of Today’s Woman magazine outlined the controversies in the article titled “Don’t Let Hidden Handicaps Retard Your Child”. It also provided guidelines to parents about how to identify potential problems.
The complete article written by Robert Robertson is available for download below.
In the 70 years since the article was published, you would think that school Vision and Hearing screens would be perfect by now. The fact is, they are still not reliable. Here’s a quote from the Optomitrists Network.
Question: Are School Vision Screenings Reliable?
Answer: No. A big concern is that parents will believe that passing a vision screening, means that a child has perfect vision. This false belief can inhibit detection and treatment of a true vision problem.
Mid-Century Page 
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