Two years' clinical experience with the preferential looking technique for visual acuity determination in infants and young children

Abstract

Two years' experience with a preferential looking technique for visual acuity determination was evaluated. Ninety-three patients were tested during this period, but selected groups (34 patients) were reported on earlier. In 59 patients aged 2 months to 13.75 years 131 testing procedures were performed. Diagnostic groups included uncomplicated strabismus (n = 26), strabismus combined with neurological disturbances (n = 16), neurological disturbances alone (n = 11) and other ocular diseases (n = 6). In addition, several of the children were mentally retarded. In 52 of the 59 patients in this study valuable results were obtained, while no useful information could be gathered from the remaining 7 patients. The findings influenced therapy strategies in 24 patients, and subsequent testing reflected therapeutic effectiveness. The test was successful in 7 of 8 patients referred from other clinics for estimation of visual function. Although established acuity thresholds should be regarded as conservative estimates, and not directly comparable to Snellen letter acuity notations, the preferential looking technique proved to be quite valuable in a paediatric ophthalmology unit. Main indications were amblyopia detection, control of therapeutic measures in strabismics, including pre-operative evaluation, and estimation of visual capacity in children with psychomotor retardation.

Cerebral Visual Impairment in Children

“…Estimation of the corresponding visual capacity is based on fi xation times, whereby the particular stimulus of a stimulus pair (e.g. Further sources for getting information about visual Modifi ed after Hyvarinen ( 2000 ); see also Table 2.14 6 Diagnostic Assessment capacities include the systematic observation of visually guided everyday life activities and the use of electrophysiological methods, which allow recording of physiological correlations of visual capacities (Lundh 1989 ;Hartmann et al 1990 ;Bane and Birch 1992 ;Bravarone et al 1993 ;Katsumi et al 1995Katsumi et al , 1997Katsumi et al , 1998Lewis et al 1995 ;Rydberg and Ericson 1998 ). It is, however, important to avoid habituation effects by presenting the same stimulus pair too often.…”

Computer‐assisted dosage calculation for strabismus therapy in myopic patients

“…We also optimized amblyopic therapy before surgery (Koskela et al. 1991; Lundh 1986). To determine the effect of this surgical intervention, subjects were tested before the operation, 1 day, 1 week, 3 months and 1–6 years after the operation (Shauly et al.…”

Evaluation of patients with obvious or suspected degenerative and dystrophic disorders of the retina, pigment epithelium and choroids

“…The apparatus used for determining visual acuity by means of preferential looking was a copy of that developed by Dobson & Teller (1978). It was recently described in detail by Lundh (1986).…”