Use of a Structured Observation to Evaluate Visual Behavior in Young Children
By Rydberg, Agneta; Ericson, Birgit; Lindstedt, Eva; Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness, Vol. 98, No. 3, pp. 172-179Publication Date: March 2004
Paper describes a checklist used to provide relevant information regarding visual function for children younger than two years of age. The checklist includes objects or tasks from daily activities that require different visual capabilities, such as a teddy bear or a doll, raisins, large print, and small details in pictures. The visual behavior of the child in the test situation indicates the child’s visual ability. The results from the checklist place the child into one of four different quantitative levels of vision, each of which pertains to a certain range of visual acuity. A study was conducted that included 63 children who were observed using the checklist. The participants were sighted children and children with visual impairments due to ocular disease. The results of evaluating visual acuity by use of the checklist were compared with the results of the evaluations with other vision tests, including: (1) grading acuity and contrast detection ability, and (2) optotype acuity tests for distance, which is the measure used by the World Health Organization for classifying visual impairment. The results of the study support the authors’ belief that the checklist is good observational test for detecting children’s visual ability when recognition cannot be assessed because of age or mental capacity.
Published by: AFB Press (Website:http://www.afb.org/Section.asp?SectionID=46)
American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) (Web Site: http://www.afb.org )
