Resumen de Development of visual acuity and contrast sensitivity in children

Susan J. Leat, Naveen K. Yadav, Elizabeth L. Irving

• Purpose.

  Most studies of visual development have concentrated on visual development of infants. Only a few studies have extended this to children and determined the point at which visual function becomes truly adult-like. Yet from a clinical and research perspective it is important to know this. This review paper is a discussion of the development of visual acuity and contrast sensitivity into childhood.

  Methods.

  The literature on subjective (measured with preferential looking or psychophysical methods) and objective (visually-evoked potential) measures of visual acuity and contrast sensitivity was examined with particular emphasis on studies of children over the age of 5 years and those articles that compared different age groups and those that made a comparison with adults.

  Results.

  Visual acuity was found to be fully mature between the ages of 5 and the mid teenage years, while contrast sensitivity was found to mature fully between the ages of 8 to 19 years. Thus, there is still no clear answer to the fundamental question of when these basic aspects of visual function mature, but it may be later than previously thought.

  Conclusions.

  Further studies are needed to answer this basic question more precisely and objective measures, such as VEP, may be able to answer this question better than psychophysical methods.