The effect of strabismus on a young child’s selection of a playmate

The perception of strabismus by children and adults

“…Additionally, in the perception of children, esotropia ranks worse than exotropia, thereby confirming the tendency found by Paysse et al [12] in older children. This is contrary to the findings of Johns et al [6], who were not able to find that children are influenced by the direction of the squint. However, since they also used smaller squint angles and paired different children together rather than showing the same child with different conditions side by side, the power might have been too small to detect significant differences.…”

“…Johns et al [6] evaluated the effect of strabismus on the selection of playmates by children, and found that almost equal percentages of exotropic and esotropic children were selected as playmates. Paysse et al [12] studied the behavior of children aged between 3 and 7 years toward orthotropic, esotropic, and exotropic dolls.…”

Strabismus and discrimination in children: are children with strabismus invited to fewer birthday parties?

“…Johns et al 14 could not confirm these findings. In their study, they analysed the impact of strabismus on the selection of playmates showing photographs of children arranged in pairs of one orthotropic child and another child with strabismus.…”

Strabismus-related prejudice in 5-6-year-old children

“…Among ophthalmologists and the public alike, the anecdotal impression is that individuals with strabismus receive negative reactions from people of all ages. However, a study conducted recently by Johns and colleagues13 challenged this conventional notion as they did not find an impact of strabismus on playmate selection among children between 3 and 8 years old. Although this finding suggests that strabismus may not play a significant role in social acceptance among young children, alternate explanations for John et al 's findings should be examined.…”

“…As the reactions of these children were targeted towards dolls, it is difficult to extrapolate that children will behave similarly when interacting with their peers who have noticeable strabismus. Subsequently, Johns et al 13 conducted a study to investigate the effect of strabismus on a child's selection of playmate. The study consisted of 100 children, 3–8 years old, who were asked to select a playmate by looking at paired strabismic–orthotropic images.…”