Development of Visual Acuity and Contrast Sensitivity in Children

Abstract

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.

Keywords

• visual development
• visual acuity
• contrast sensitivity
• critical period
• visually-evoked potential