Strabismus can be seen in Down syndrome, Loeys-Dietz syndrome, cerebral palsy, and Edwards syndrome. The risk is increased among those with a family history of the condition.

Between 2 and 5% of the population in western countries have amblyopia. In the U.K., 90% of visual health appointments in the child are concerning amblyopia.

Depending on the chosen criterion for diagnosis, between 1 and 4% of the children have amblyopia.

The number of cases is around 0.5 to 0.7 per 10,000 births, making it a relatively rare condition.

Young children with strabismus normally suppress the visual field of one eye (or part of it), whereas adults who develop strabismus normally do not suppress and therefore suffer from double vision (diplopia). This also means that adults (and older children) have a higher risk of post-operative diplopia after undergoing strabismus surgery than young children. Patients who have undergone strabismus surgery at a young age often have monofixation syndrome (with peripheral binocular fusion and a central suppression scotoma).

Colobomas can be associated with a mutation in the "PAX2" gene.

Eye abnormalities have been shown to occur in over 90% of children with fetal alcohol syndrome.

People of all ages who have noticeable strabismus may experience psychosocial difficulties. Attention has also been drawn to potential socioeconomic impact resulting from cases of detectable strabismus. A socioeconomic consideration exists as well in the context of decisions regarding strabismus treatment, including efforts to re-establish binocular vision and the possibility of stereopsis recovery.

One study has shown that strabismic children commonly exhibit behaviors marked by higher degrees of inhibition, anxiety, and emotional distress, often leading to outright emotional disorders. These disorders are often related to a negative perception of the child by peers. This is due not only to an altered aesthetic appearance, but also because of the inherent symbolic nature of the eye and gaze, and the vitally important role they play in an individual's life as social components. For some, these issues improved dramatically following strabismus surgery. Notably, strabismus interferes with normal eye contact, often causing embarrassment, anger, and feelings of awkwardness, thereby affecting social communication in a fundamental way, with a possible negative effect on self esteem.

Children with strabismus, particularly those with exotropia (an outward turn), may be more likely to develop a mental health disorder than normal-sighted children. Researchers have theorized that esotropia (an inward turn) was not found to be linked to a higher propensity for mental illness due to the age range of the participants, as well as the shorter follow-up time period; esotropic children were monitored to a mean age of 15.8 years, compared with 20.3 years for the exotropic group. A subsequent study with participants from the same area monitored congenital esotropia patients for a longer time period; results indicated that esotropic patients "were" also more likely to develop mental illness of some sort upon reaching early adulthood, similar to those with constant exotropia, intermittent exotropia, or convergence insufficiency. The likelihood was 2.6 times that of controls. No apparent association with premature birth was observed, and no evidence was found linking later onset of mental illness to psychosocial stressors frequently encountered by those with strabismus.

Investigations have highlighted the impact that strabismus may typically have on quality of life. Studies in which subjects were shown images of strabismic and non-strabismic persons showed a strong negative bias towards those visibly displaying the condition, clearly demonstrating the potential for future socioeconomic implications with regard to employability, as well as other psychosocial effects related to an individual's overall happiness.

Adult and child observers perceived a right heterotropia as more disturbing than a left heterotropia, and child observers perceived an esotropia as "worse" than an exotropia. Successful surgical correction of strabismus—for adult patients as well as children—has been shown to have a significantly positive effect on psychological well-being.

Very little research exists regarding coping strategies employed by adult strabismics. One study categorized coping methods into three subcategories: avoidance (refraining from participation an activity), distraction (deflecting attention from the condition), and adjustment (approaching an activity differently). The authors of the study suggested that individuals with strabismus may benefit from psychosocial support such as interpersonal skills training.

No studies have evaluated whether psychosocial interventions have had any benefits on individuals undergoing strabismus surgery.

Incomitant esotropias are conditions in which the esotropia varies in size with direction of gaze. They can occur in both childhood and adulthood, and arise as a result of neurological, mechanical or myogenic problems. These problems may directly affect the extra-ocular muscles themselves, and may also result from conditions affecting the nerve or blood supply to these muscles or the bony orbital structures surrounding them. Examples of conditions giving rise to an esotropia might include a VIth cranial nerve (or Abducens) palsy, Duane's syndrome or orbital injury.

"Congenital esotropia," or "infantile esotropia," is a specific sub-type of primary concomitant esotropia. It is a constant esotropia of large and consistent size with onset between birth and six months of age. It is not associated with hyperopia, so the exertion of accommodative effort will not significantly affect the angle of deviation. It is, however, associated with other ocular dysfunctions including oblique muscle over-actions, Dissociated Vertical Deviation (DVD,) Manifest Latent Nystagmus, and defective abduction, which develops as a consequence of the tendency of those with infantile esotropia to 'cross fixate.' Cross fixation involves the use of the right eye to look to the left and the left eye to look to the right; a visual pattern that will be 'natural' for the person with the large angle esotropia whose eye is already deviated towards the opposing side.

The origin of the condition is unknown, and its early onset means that the affected individual's potential for developing binocular vision is limited. The appropriate treatment approach remains a matter of some debate. Some ophthalmologists favour an early surgical approach as offering the best prospect of binocularity whilst others remain unconvinced that the prospects of achieving this result are good enough to justify the increased complexity and risk associated with operating on those under the age of one year.

Suppression may treated with vision therapy, though there is a wide range of opinions on long-term effectiveness between eye care professionals, with little scientific evidence of long-term improvement of suppression, if the underlying cause is not addressed (strabismus, amblyopia, etc.).

Ametropic amblyopia, is a medical condition in which the retina cannot focus on the image of a distant object, a condition often described as reduced visual acuity. This is due to large uncorrected refractive errors in the patient's optic system of the eyes. Astigmatism is one of the most frequent causes of ametropic amblyopia.

There is no known cure for this syndrome. Patients usually need ophthalmic surgery and may also need dental surgery

Genetic counseling and screening of the mother's relatives is recommended.

Amblyopia, also called lazy eye, is a disorder of sight due to the eye and brain not working well together. It results in decreased vision in an eye that otherwise typically appears normal. It is the most common cause of decreased vision in a single eye among children and younger adults.

The cause of amblyopia can be any condition that interferes with focusing during early childhood. This can occur from poor alignment of the eyes, an eye being irregularly shaped such that focusing is difficult, one eye being more nearsighted or farsighted than the other, or clouding of the lens of an eye. After the underlying cause is fixed, vision is not restored right away, as the mechanism also involves the brain. Amblyopia can be difficult to detect, so vision testing is recommended for all children around the ages of four to five.

Early detection improves treatment success. Eye glasses may be all the treatment needed for some children. If this is not sufficient, treatments which force the child to use the weaker eye are used. This is done by either using a patch or putting atropine in the stronger eye. Without treatment, amblyopia typically persists into adulthood. Evidence regarding treatments for adults is poor.

Amblyopia begins by the age of five. In adults, the disorder is estimated to affect 1–5% of the population. While treatment improves vision, it does not typically restore it to normal in the affected eye. Amblyopia was first described in the 1600s. The condition may make people ineligible to be pilots or police officers. The word amblyopia is from Greek ἀμβλύς "amblys" meaning "blunt" and ὤψ "ōps" meaning "sight".

This syndrome is due to mutations in the Nance Horan gene (NHS) which is located on the short arm of the X chromosome (Xp22.13).

Kaufman oculocerebrofacial syndrome is an autosomal recessive congenital disorder characterized by mental retardation, brachycephaly, upslanting palpebral fissures, eye abnormalities, and highly arched palate. It was characterized in 1971; eight cases had been identified as of 1995.

The cause of this condition is apparently due to mutation in the UBE3B gene and is inherited via autosomal recessive manner. This gene is located at molecular location- base pairs 109,477,410 to 109,543,628 and position 24.11 on chromosome 12.

The recurrence of DOOR in siblings and the finding of DOOR syndrome in a few families with consanguinity suggest that the condition is an autosomal recessive genetic condition. Mutations in TBC1D24 have been identified in 9 families.

SCS is the most common craniosynostosis syndrome and affects 1 in every 25,000 to 50,000 individuals. It occurs in all racial and ethnic groups, and affects males and females equally. If a parent carries a copy of the SCS gene mutation, then there is a 50% chance their child will also carry a copy of the gene mutation, in which case, the child may or may not show signs of SCS. There is also a 50% chance their child will have two working copies of the gene, and would therefore, not have SCS. If both parents carry a single copy of the SCS gene mutation, then there is a 25% chance their child will have two gene mutation copies (so child would develop severe SCS), a 25% chance their child would have two normal copies of the gene (so would be completely normal), and a 50% chance their child would carry one gene mutation copy and 1 normal copy (so child may or may not display SCS). In rare situations, two normal parents can have a child with SCS due to a "de novo" mutation. The exact cause of the "de novo" mutation is unknown, but it doesn't seem to be related to anything that the parents did or didn't do during the pregnancy. SCS due to a "de novo" mutation is so rare that the proportion of past cases is unknown.

This disorder is caused by an abnormality of the TBCE gene, the locus for which is on Chromosome 1q42.3. The locus is a 230 kb region of gene with identified deletions and mutations in affected individuals. There are rare cases of the disorder not being due to a TBCE gene abnormality.

DeSanctis–Cacchione syndrome is an extremely rare disorder characterized by the skin and eye symptoms of xeroderma pigmentosum (XP) occurring in association with microcephaly, progressive mental retardation, retarded growth and sexual development, deafness, choreoathetosis, ataxia and quadriparesis.

In at least some case, the gene lesion involves a mutation in the "CSB" gene.

It can be associated with "ERCC6".

A low socioeconomic status in a deprived neighborhood may include exposure to “environmental stressors and risk factors.” Socioeconomic inequalities are commonly measured by the Cartairs-Morris score, Index of Multiple Deprivation, Townsend deprivation index, and the Jarman score. The Jarman score, for example, considers “unemployment, overcrowding, single parents, under-fives, elderly living alone, ethnicity, low social class and residential mobility.” In Vos’ meta-analysis these indices are used to view the effect of low SES neighborhoods on maternal health. In the meta-analysis, data from individual studies were collected from 1985 up until 2008. Vos concludes that a correlation exists between prenatal adversities and deprived neighborhoods. Other studies have shown that low SES is closely associated with the development of the fetus in utero and growth retardation. Studies also suggest that children born in low SES families are “likely to be born prematurely, at low birth weight, or with asphyxia, a birth defect, a disability, fetal alcohol syndrome, or AIDS.” Bradley and Corwyn also suggest that congenital disorders arise from the mother’s lack of nutrition, a poor lifestyle, maternal substance abuse and “living in a neighborhood that contains hazards affecting fetal development (toxic waste dumps).” In a meta-analysis that viewed how inequalities influenced maternal health, it was suggested that deprived neighborhoods often promoted behaviors such as smoking, drug and alcohol use. After controlling for socioeconomic factors and ethnicity, several individual studies demonstrated an association with outcomes such as perinatal mortality and preterm birth.

The mother's consumption of alcohol during pregnancy can cause a continuum of various permanent birth defects : cranofacial abnormalities, brain damage, intellectual disability, heart disease, kidney abnormality, skeletal anomalies, ocular abnormalities.

The prevalence of children affected is estimated at least 1 percent in U.S. as well in Canada.

Very few studies have investigated the links between paternal alcohol use and offspring health.

However, recent animal research has shown a correlation between paternal alcohol exposure and decreased offspring birth weight. Behavioral and cognitive disorders, including difficulties with learning and memory, hyperactivity, and lowered stress tolerance have been linked to paternal alcohol ingestion. The compromised stress management skills of animals whose male parent was exposed to alcohol are similar to the exaggerated responses to stress that children with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome display because of maternal alcohol use. These birth defects and behavioral disorders were found in cases of both long- and short-term paternal alcohol ingestion. In the same animal study, paternal alcohol exposure was correlated with a significant difference in organ size and the increased risk of the offspring displaying ventricular septal defects (VSD) at birth.

Cohen syndrome (also known as Pepper syndrome or Cervenka syndrome, named after Michael Cohen, William Pepper and Jaroslav Cervenka, who researched the illness) is a genetic disorder.

Prenatal diagnosis of Saethre-Chotzen Syndrome in high risk pregnancies is doable, but very uncommon and rarely performed. Furthermore, this is only possible if the mutation causing the disease has already been identified within the family genome. There are a few different techniques in which prenatal testing can be carried out. Prenatal testing is usually performed around 15–18 weeks, using amniocentesis to extract DNA from the fetus's cells. Prenatal testing can also be performed during weeks 10-12 using chorionic villus sampling (CVS) to extract DNA from the fetus. Recently, there has been an increased interest in utilizing ultrasound equipment in order to detect fetal skull abnormalities due to immature fusion of the cranial sutures.

Researchers are also investigating the genetic similarities between Dubowitz Syndrome and Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome (SLOS). Patients with SLOS and Dubowitz syndromes experience many of the same abnormalities, and the two disorders are hypothesized to be linked. A characteristic of SLOS is a low cholesterol level and a high 7-dehydrocholesterol level. Cholesterol is essential for several key functions of the body, including cell membrane structure, embryogenesis, and steroid and sex hormone synthesis. Impaired cholesterol biosynthesis or transport possibly accounts for most of the symptoms of both SLOS and Dubowitz. Although only a few patients with Dubowitz Syndrome have been identified with altered cholesterol levels, researchers are exploring whether Dubowitz Syndrome, like SLOS, carries a link to a defect in the cholesterol biosynthetic pathway.

The exact biochemical pathology of the disease is still under research because of the low prevalence of the disease and the wide array of symptoms associated with it. Several studies have focused on different aspects of the disease to try to find its exact cause and expression. One study examined the specific oral features in one patient. Another found abnormalities in the brain, such as corpus callosum dysgenesis, an underdeveloped anterior pituitary and a brain stalk with an ectopic neurohypophysis.