LISTENER SEPTEMBER 14 2019ThisLife
NUTRITION • FOOD • WINE • PSYCHOLOGY • TECHNOLOGY• SPORT
by Nicky Pellegrino
GE
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Off the char t
A promising screen-based
test is taking the place of
eye charts for diagnosing
kids with vision problems.
Jason TuruwhenuaT
esting the eyesight of children early on
is important for picking up and cor-
recting problems that might otherwise
lead to lasting vision loss. But getting
accurate results from younger children
is notoriously difficult. Simply making
them sit down and focus on an eye test
can be a mission.
If kids aren’t yet talking, a particular challenge
is diagnosing amblyopia, commonly known as
lazy eye. This has several causes. Perhaps the eyes
don’t line up as they should (strabismus), or one
has much better focus than the other because of
astigmatism. The end result is the same. If a child’s
brain receives a blurry image from one eye and a
clear one from the other, it will start to ignore the
blurry one. Over time, the vision in the neglected
eye will get worse.
Jason Turuwhenua is a researcher who works
at the Auckland Bioengineering Institute and the
department of optometry and vision science at
the University of Auckland. For
the past decade, he has been
involved in developing a
tool to diagnose lazy eye
more easily in very young
children.
The condition affects
one in 25 kids and typi-
cally begins in infancy or
early childhood. It is muchHEALTH