OPTICAL INGENUITY

A New Kind of Book PAL

Children’s optician grows business through innovation, creativity, and fun

next time you’ve got a wiggly, wants-to-be-anywhere-but-here young patient at your dispensing table, think of Danielle Crull, ABOM. She does that all day, every day. And loves it.

Crull, who is known to her young patients as “Miss Danielle,” owns A Child’s Eyes in Mechanicsburg, PA. She has worked with children almost exclusively for the past 19 of her 26-year career, and opened her optical shop more than a decade ago.

Danielle Crull, ABOM

“I just learned to do what came natural to me in regards to relating to children,” she says about her kids-only focus. “I realize that this type of relating to a customer is quite different from the majority of patients most opticians serve.”

EXPERIENCE MATTERS

She has developed over the years specific “how-to” knowledge regarding fitting youngsters that other opticians who serve mostly adults may lack; and she has a calling for sharing that knowledge with others. She’s authored CE courses, been a national speaker, and has written a children’s book that explains amblyopia and patch therapy.

Her latest endeavor is a dispensing tool that combines a storybook adventure and bifocal training.

“Over the years I have learned different techniques and methods that show a child how to use their bifocal,” she explains. “The truth is most kids will naturally prefer it if given the opportunity and if we take the time to show them. We then take it a step further and teach the parents how to recognize if their child is or isn’t using their bifocal.”

In an effort to help other ECPs do the same, Crull and her daughter Jax, also an optician, created “Banana Bobby Gets Bifocals,” a children’s book that follows Bobby as he gets bifocals, and then goes on a series of adventures. The hook is that portions of the adventures are only visible when viewed through temporary blue decals that are placed over the bifocal’s reading seg on the lens, thereby teaching the children how to look through their lenses for near vision.

“I remembered the little secret blue images that used to be on cereal boxes and the spy glasses and that’s what we set out to base it on,” Crull explains.

BOOK LEARNING

The book is designed to be used in the office or dispensary. Each book comes with a supply of blue filters. Crull says patients can read the entire book, or look at portions of it, depending on their age.

Crull’s book is designed to train little ones to use their bifocals properly

“I think for an optician, it’s great to go through the book when dispensing bifocals. That’s what we have been doing in my office and not only do the kids love it, the parents leave having an excellent idea of what it should look like when their child is using their bifocals correctly,” she says. “I think in an optometrist or ophthalmologist office, it’s a great tool for either the technician to use as an evaluation of whether or not the child is using the bifocals well or even something to give the parent and child to go through in the office.”

— Susan Tarrant

For more information or to order “Banana Bobby Gets Bifocals,” visit bananabobbybook.com, and enter EYEDOC as the log in code.