STEREOACUITY DEVELOPMENT - 6 MONTHS TO 5 YEARS - A NEW TOOL FOR TESTING AND SCREENING

A new tool to measure changes in random dot stereoacuity development f rom 6 months to 5 years of age was developed and tested. Either a forc ed choice or operant preferential looking (PL) paradigm with a happy f ace target was successfully used to test 136 children. Results indicat e that stereoacuity measurements continue to develop through the first years of life. Although children below 24 months of age can be expect ed to have stereo thresholds in the range of 300 sec are, there is a t ransition at approximately 24 months of age after which stereoacuity a pproaches adult levels. The sensitivity of this test in detecting bino cular vision problems was 80%. These results provide guidelines for th e assessment of stereoacuity in young children and also provide a new tool for the early detection of binocular vision anomalies.