Recognition acuity, grating acuity, contrast sensitivity, and visual fields in 6-year-old children

Objective: To measure monocular distance visual acuity (VA), grating VA, contrast sensitivity, and visual field extent in full-term, 6-year-old children. Methods: Subjects were 59 healthy full-term children aged 5.8 to 6.3 years who had no ocular abnormalities and no myopia of 1.00 diopter (D) or greater, hyperopia of 4.00 D or greater, astigmatism of 1.50 D or greater, or anisometropia of 1.50 D or greater spherical equivalent or cylinder, as evaluated by a standard eye examination with cycloplegic refraction. All were tested monocularly for recognition acuity (Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study VA charts), grating acuity (Teller acuity cards), contrast sensitivity (Pelli-Robson contrast sensitivity charts), and visual field extent (white-sphere kinetic perimetry). Results: Right and left eye values did not differ significantly. Mean values for the right eye were 0.040 log-MAR (SD, 0.075 log units) for Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study VA, 24.5 cycles per degree (SD, 0.3 octaves) for grating acuity, and 1.63 (SD, 0.12 log units) for contrast sensitivity. Mean visual field extent for the inferonasal, superonasal, superotemporal, and inferotemporal meridians was 59.1° (SD, 9.7° ), 57.8° (SD, 9.6° ), 71.2° (SD, 12.3° ), and 100.4° (SD, 6.6° ), respectively. Conclusions: The results provide additional normative monocular data on visual function in 6-year-old children and indicate that their thresholds are less than those of adults for distance recognition VA, grating VA, and contrast sensitivity, but similar to those of adults for whitesphere kinetic perimetry.