Abstract
Purpose :
Low birth weight (LBW) children are at increased risk of visual impairments. Visual sensory and perceptual skills are important for a range of functions and everyday activities, such as classroom learning, overall school performance, successful social interaction and social cognition. The purpose of this study is to investigate color discrimination in low birth weight Brazilian low-income school children.
Methods :
Farnsworth-Munsell D15 was tested monocularly in LBW children aging from 5 to 11 years of age, from 14 randomly chosen public schools, located in Embu das Artes City, Brazil. An additional control group with normal birth weight (NBW; ≥2500g) was included. Participants were assigned into three groups: VLBW (<1500g), LBW (1500 to <2500g) and controls. Color vision parameters (score and chromatic classification) were determined and considered as normal, moderate anomaly or severe anomaly. Inclusion criteria were visual acuity ≥20/25 in either eye, stereopsis of at least 40”, absence of manifest strabismus and normal contrast sensitivity. Data from only the first eye tested were used for analysis.
Results :
A group of 10 VLBW children (mean age=9.2± 0.73; range 8.2-10.2 yrs;6 females), 131 LBW children (mean age=8.8± 1.17; range 6.0-10.7 yrs;76 females) and 158 NBW (mean age=8.7±1.27; range 5.8-11.8 yrs;91 females) was examined. In VLBW group, 10 (90.0%) children presented normal color discrimination and one moderated color discrimination anomaly. In LBW group, 116 (88.6%) children presented normal color discrimination (mean score=1.15±0.19) compared to 90.5% from control group (mean score=1.17±0.17). Moderate color discrimination (mean score=1.91±0.17) was found in 10 (7.6%) and severe color discrimination (mean score=2.72±0.67) was found in 5 (3.5%) LBW children. Color vision parameters were comparable among VLBW, LBW and controls (p=0.3091). Children older than 8 years had significantly better color discrimination regardless their birth weight (p<0.001 for LBW, p= 0.001 for NBW).
Conclusions :
School children with low birth weight presented color discrimination assessed by D15 comparable to those with normal birth weight. A small proportion of children with color anomalies was found either in LBW and NBW. D15 performance was better in children older than 8 years old regardless birth weight.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2017 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Baltimore, MD, May 7-11, 2017.