A squint, known medically as strabismus, describes the situation in which one eye points straight ahead while the other turns inwards or outwards, or looks up or down. The result of this is that the brain favours the straight eye over the other eye, and the eye that is misaligned often becomes ‘lazy’.

A lazy eye develops because the nerve pathways in the optic nerve do not form properly. The eye needs to be used for this to happen, and in a child with a squint, one eye is ignored, so those important nerve pathways never develop.

Non-surgical methods of treating a squint The first treatment to correct a squint is to prescribe glasses, if appropriate, as this can often straighten the eye. The next step is to make the eye that is misaligned work harder to improve its capacity for vision.