An eye for the right touch

Paul Clinton

Young Kelley Engel bopped around in an exam chair, cooing about

the “magic” glasses and smiling as a doctor, Beth Ballinger, shined

her retinoscope at the girl for a routine eye exam.

It was the 3-year-old’s first eye exam, a surprisingly playful and

relaxed process that culminated in the sparkly gift of a faux ruby

and diamond ring.

Ballinger, who has run an optometrist practice out of her Dover

Street office for more than 20 years, makes eye exams fun. This isn’t

a coldly sterile experience that children grow to dread.

“The kids are not inhibited one bit,” Kelley’s mother, Jennifer,

said. “They’re having fun.”

Ballinger has a deeper reason for using the fun frog glasses,

colorful visual-recognition blocks and a furry play mouse that pipes

disco-classic “Kung-Fu Fighting” as it twirls a tiny noon-chuck.

She specializes in treating children with severe disabilities, who

become easily frightened by a doctor’s tools and any kind of poking

or prodding.

Many of the disabled children quickly open up, when Ballinger

pulls out a colorful toy or instrument carefully disguised by a fun

animal.

Ballinger, who lives in Corona del Mar, treats many children who

can’t afford to pay for the treatment. She says she has never turned

a child away.

One young girl Ballinger treated had eaten hamburger meat

contaminated by E. coli bacteria and was confined to a wheelchair.

The 8-year-old was a paraplegic and breathing from an apparatus.

After several sessions, the girl could communicate by moving her

eyes and breathe on her own for nine-hour intervals.

Ballinger isn’t a miracle healer. However, she trains the children

to use visual skills to improve their daily lives.

“You have to look beyond the disability,” Ballinger said. “You

have to see that essential human soul that’s inside them.”

And often Ballinger finds a fairly simple solution to a child’s

problems in school reading, writing or paying attention to lessons.

In the case of one girl, whose vision blurred when she looked to

the left, it was as simple as moving her to the left-hand side of the

classroom. She had been diagnosed with Dwayne’s syndrome.

Ballinger’s solution helped the girl listen to the lessons without

needing to crane her neck.