American Board of Opticianry (ABO) Practice Test

At birth, most children are actually born hyperopic, which means they have difficulty focusing on near objects. This is because a baby's eyeball is shorter than that of an adult, causing light to focus behind the retina rather than directly on it. As the child grows and their eyeball lengthens, often reaching adult size by the time they are two or three years old, their refractive status tends to shift towards emmetropia (normal vision) or possibly myopia (nearsightedness) later in childhood. Hyperopia is the common refractive error at birth due to the characteristics of a baby's eye structure.