To evaluate the refractive outcome in 10year-old prematurely born children and in full-term control children. Methods: Retinoscopy during cycloplegia was performed in 213 prematurely born children from a previous population-based study on the incidence of retinopathy of prematurity and in 217 children born at term. The spherical equivalent, astigmatism, anisometropia, and significant refractive errors (defined as hypermetropia Ͼ3 diopters [D], myopia Յ−1 D, astigmatism Ն1 D in 1 or both eyes, and/or anisometropia Ն1 D) were analyzed. Results: Significant refractive errors were found in 29.6% of the prematurely born and in 7.8% of the full-term children. Prematurely born children had higher prevalences of hypermetropia of more than 3 D, myopia of −1

The aim of this study was to describe the orthoptic and ophthalmological findings in schoolchildren with asthenopia, to correlate them with asthenopic symptoms and to evaluate the effect of treatment. One hundred and twenty schoolchildren, aged 6-16 years, were included in the study. They were all referred by school nurses, for asthenopic symptoms. An orthoptic and ophthalmological assessment was performed. The main diagnoses were accommodative insufficiency, convergence insufficiency, refractive errors, and latent strabismus. Reading glasses could help 98% of the schoolchildren with reduced accommodation, and 94% of the children with refractive errors and heterophorias were helped with appropriate spherical, cylindrical and prism correction. Convergence exercise reduced the symptoms in all patients with convergence insufficiency. Ninety-three percent of all 120 schoolchildren were symptom free 3-6 month after treatment had started. By an orthoptic and ophthalmological examination abnormalities in schoolchildren with asthenopia related to visual problems can be identified. Most of the children were relieved from their symptoms by giving adequate glasses, convergence exercises and surgery.

Dyslexia is a neurodevelopmental reading disability estimated to affect 5–10% of the population. While there is yet no full understanding of the cause of dyslexia, or agreement on its precise definition, it is certain that many individuals suffer persistent problems in learning to read for no apparent reason. Although it is generally agreed that early intervention is the best form of support for children with dyslexia, there is still a lack of efficient and objective means to help identify those at risk during the early years of school. Here we show that it is possible to identify 9–10 year old individuals at risk of persistent reading difficulties by using eye tracking during reading to probe the processes that underlie reading ability. In contrast to current screening methods, which rely on oral or written tests, eye tracking does not depend on the subject to produce some overt verbal response and thus provides a natural means to objectively assess the reading process as it unfolds in real-time. Our study is based on a sample of 97 high-risk subjects with early identified word decoding difficulties and a control group of 88 low-risk subjects. These subjects were selected from a larger population of 2165 school children attending second grade. Using predictive modeling and statistical resampling techniques, we develop classification models from eye tracking records less than one minute in duration and show that the models are able to differentiate high-risk subjects from low-risk subjects with high accuracy. Although dyslexia is fundamentally a language-based learning disability, our results suggest that eye movements in reading can be highly predictive of individual reading ability and that eye tracking can be an efficient means to identify children at risk of long-term reading difficulties.

Asthenopia was significantly associated with uncorrected visual acuity < or = 0.65 and with myopia (spherical equivalent -0.50 D or less) among Swedish schoolchildren.