COMPARISON OF MEASURES OF VISUAL-ACUITY IN INFANTS - TELLER ACUITY CARDS AND SWEEP VISUAL-EVOKED POTENTIALS

Purpose: This study compares the development of acuity in the same inf ants during one testing session using Teller acuity cards (TAG) and sw eep visual evoked potentials (sVEP), We asked whether different testin g methods in two centers would produce different developmental time co urses, Methods: Forty-eight infants were tested in two centers, The st andard procedure for TAC was used, For sVEP acuity, the amplitude resp onse curve derived from time-locked cortical activity was used to extr apolate to zero response, giving an acuity estimate for each infant. R esults: sVEP acuity was generally higher than TAC acuity, The rate of development was steeper for TAC than sVEP acuity with TAC starting at a much lower level, The ratio of sVEP to TAC acuity decreased exponent ially with age reaching an asymptote of about 1.44 at 6 months, Conclu sions: Results were indistinguishable between centers suggesting that comparison of acuity measures obtained using variations of these metho ds across centers is possible.