Abstract
Purpose: :
The purpose of this study was to determine test-retest reliability data for a new near vision, number reading chart designed to measure visual efficiency, the Odom-Robin Visual Efficiency Chart in a pediatric population.
Methods: :
11 female and 12 male students whose mean age was 11.78 years (range 9-15 years) who were participating in an After School All Stars Reading Camp at St. John’s University in New York were tested using the first three panels of the Odom Robin Visual Efficiency Chart. The Odom-Robin Chart is a near vision number reading chart which consists of numbers which must be read and compared as same and different. The chart consists of 10 blocks of numbers whose sizes range from 0.9 LogMAR to 0 LogMAR in 0.1 LogMAR steps. Five lines and two columns of the same print size are grouped into a block. Students read each line of the three largest sizes (15 lines), indicating whether the two numbers on each line were the same or different. Test distance was 40 cm. Low stress Lighting was used for the test. The time required to read the 15 lines with no more than one error per block of 5 lines was recorded. Students were tested twice with a minimum separation between tests of one day and maximum separation of one week.
Results: :
Students completed the test in 40.67±8.80 sec on average. Performance on the Odom-Robin chart correlated significantly with age (r = -0.43, p < 0.05), indicating that older students were able to read the chart correctly more quickly. However, results did not differ with gender (t = 1.64, p = 0.12). Test-retest reliability was exceptionally good in this sample (r = 0.98, p < 0.0001).
Conclusions: :
The Odom Robin Chart provides a rapid, highly reliable estimate of a student’s visual efficiency. The Chart is responsive to age, a variable which should be related to visual efficiency, but relatively unresponsive to gender a variable which should not affect visual efficiency.
Keywords: reading • visual development: infancy and childhood • clinical (human) or epidemiologic studies: systems/equipment/techniques