Evaluation of a new color vision test: "color vision testing made easy".
OBJECTIVE
A new pseudoisochromatic color plate test, "Color Vision Testing Made Easy" (CVTMET) has recently been introduced. Said to be designed for all age groups, including pre-school children, it uses the identification of simple shapes and objects to detect red-green color deficiencies. We evaluated the CVTMET to determine if the test is suitable for color vision screening of young children.


METHODS
Forty-one adults predetermined to be color normal (n = 20) or to have hereditary red-green color deficiency (n = 21), served as subjects. A battery of color vision tests including the Ishihara, Panel D-15, and the anomaloscope were used for diagnosis and color deficiency classification. Subjects were then tested with Part I and Part II of the CVTMET test and results were compared to the Ishihara, Panel D-15, and anomaloscope. In addition, the CVTMET was used to screen for color vision deficiency in 152 kindergarten children 5 to 7 years of age.


RESULTS
The pass/fail results for the adult subjects were the same for Parts I and II and compared favorably with the anomaloscope. There were no false positives (100% specificity) and only a few (2 of 21) false negatives (90.5% sensitivity). The two color-deficient subjects who passed the CVTMET had the mildest color deficiencies (simple deuteranomaly) and also passed the Ishihara test. Testability of kindergarten children was found to be 100%. Color vision deficiency occurred in 5.06% of the boys, which is about the same frequency found in older boys of similar ethnic background.


CONCLUSIONS
This preliminary study indicates that the CVTMET appears to be an excellent screening instrument for red-green color deficiency in adults and has been shown to be useful for examining color vision in children 5 to 7 years of age.
Cotter
S A
SA
Southern California College of Optometry, Fullerton 92831, USA.
Lee
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French
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D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003118:Color Perception; D003119:Color Perception Tests / Q000379:methods*; D003117:Color Vision Defects / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015995:Prevalence; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity