Developmental Eye Movement Test: reliability and symptomatology.
BACKGROUND
The Developmental Eye Movement Test (DEM) is a widely used visual skill test, especially in the context of a vision therapy evaluation. It is intended to diagnose oculomotor dysfunction (OMD) and can also identify deficient rapid automatized naming. As such, its reliability and associated symptomatology are important.


METHODS
The DEM test-retest reliability was investigated within two populations: a group of 53 office patients who were participating in vision therapy evaluation in a private optometry practice, and a smaller group of 13 subjects at their school. One to four weeks separated the test and retest for both groups. We also studied the relationship between results on a questionnaire of symptoms associated with OMD and DEM test performance in these two populations.


RESULTS
The first administration of the DEM significantly correlated with the second for all four of its scores for both groups. The office group had higher intra-class correlation coefficients than the school group. There was good agreement between test and re-test in terms of pass-fail classification for the office group. Symptomatic subjects performed poorer than asymptomatic subjects on the DEM. Failing the DEM Ratio, the score used to diagnose OMD, identified 90% of the subjects who were symptomatic.


CONCLUSIONS
The DEM has good intra-subject test-retest reliability for all four of its scores when it is administered in an office setting to patients participating in a vision therapy evaluation. It also has good consistency in classifying patients as pass or fail. Performance on the DEM relates to certain symptoms that are associated with OMD.
Tassinari
J T
JT
jtod@sbcglobal.net
DeLand
Paul
P
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D005133:Eye Movements; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015835:Ocular Motility Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014787:Vision Tests / Q000379:methods*