A lot of children and adults have astigmatism, which is a light-focusing issue like nearsightedness (myopia) and farsightedness (hyperopia). In fact, you can think of astigmatism as two levels of nearsightedness in the same eye, and a child with astigmatism will see streaking of lights and blurry images at all distances.

According to a study funded by the National Institutes of Health, about 4% of preschoolers have myopia (nearsightedness), 21% have hyperopia (farsightedness) and 10% have astigmatism (irregular curvature of the eye).¹