Study level

  • PhD

Faculty/School

Faculty of Health

School of Clinical Sciences

Topic status

We're looking for students to study this topic.

Research centre

Centre for Vision and Eye Research

Supervisors

Dr Andrew Carkeet
Position
Senior Lecturer
Division / Faculty
Faculty of Health
Dr Shelley Hopkins
Position
Senior Lecturer
Division / Faculty
Faculty of Health

Overview

Measuring visual acuity is in preschool children is challenging. In particular, young children will be prone to making mistakes in identifying symbols on eye charts, even when they can see what those symbols are, so called “false negative responses”.
This project uses an established vision assessment protocol, EVA testing, and assesses the extent of false negative responses in this task. The protocol assesses the effects of an intervention, pointing to the target on a card, which may decrease false negative responses. This is pilot work for a larger project on measuring children’s vision, systematically assessing rules and protocols for improving acuity measurement in pre-school children. Participants: 10 children aged 3-5 years.

Outline of experiment

Vision will be tested on a computer monitor with two different methods:

  1. Very large symbols (suprathreshold) which should be very visible to the participant. This condition will allow determination of the relative frequency of false negative responses for the set of symbols.
  2. Standard acuity testing with EVA vision tests. This is a standard paediatric vision testing protocol.

Each of these methods will be assessed under different conditions:

  • one in which the child has to point to the correct symbol on card in front of them, and
  • one in which the child has to correctly name the symbol on the monitor.

The project will test our data collecting software and mathematical models already developed.

Research activities

Research activities include:

  • recruiting participants
  • testing participants' vision in a clinical setting
  • analysing data
  • writing a short report.

Outcomes

We expect you to gain skills in:

  • testing pediatric patients
  • plotting data
  • interpreting data
  • preparing a short report
  • preparing a short conference abstract.
If the results of the experiment are suitable for publication you will be given an opportunity to participate in the authorship of the project.

Skills and experience

You must have:

  • completed first year of M.Optom. degree
  • demonstrated good general clinical skills
  • a knowledge of paediatric optometry.
If you are completing your B Vis Sc you will be considered, if you have previous experience in clinical optometry and children's vision research.

Scholarships

You may be eligible to apply for a research scholarship.

Explore our research scholarships

Keywords

Contact

Contact the supervisor for more information.