title: The assessment of visual acuity in children with periventricular damage: a comparison of behavioural and electrophysiological techniques.
abstract: It has been controversial whether electrophysiology offers better precision than behavioural techniques in measuring visual acuity in children with brain damage. We investigated the concordance between sweep VEPs and Acuity Cards (AC) in 29 children with periventricular leukomalacia (PVL), the most common type of brain damage in preterm infants. An overall good correlation was shown but with relatively better behavioural acuity values. VEP/AC ratio was significantly correlated to corpus callosum posterior thinning. We propose that this result reflects the efficacy of the compensatory mechanisms following early brain damage which may differentially affect the two methods.
authors.affiliation: Division of Child Neurology and Psychiatry, University of Pisa, Italy.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Tinelli
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Pei
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Guzzetta
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bancale
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mazzotti
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Baldassi
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Cioni
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002552:Cerebral Ventricles / Q000473:pathology; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003337:Corpus Callosum / Q000473:pathology; D005074:Evoked Potentials, Visual; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007969:Leukomalacia, Periventricular / Q000150:complications / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014786:Vision Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology / Q000503:physiopathology; D014787:Vision Tests / Q000379:methods; D014792:Visual Acuity