Monocular Oral Reading Performance After Amblyopia Treatment in Children
Accepted 19 June 2008. published online 19 August 2008.
Purpose
To evaluate the monocular oral reading rate, accuracy, fluency, and comprehension in 10-year-old children previously treated for amblyopia.
Design
Prospective, observational case series.
Methods
Seventy-nine children (mean age, 10.3 years) previously treated in a multicenter randomized trial comparing patching and atropine were tested at seven sites using a modification of the Gray Oral Reading Test, Fourth Edition (GORT-4).
Results
The mean visual acuities (VA) in the amblyopic and fellow eyes at the time of the reading assessment were 0.17 logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution (logMAR) units (approximately 20/32) and −0.03 logMAR units (approximately 20/20), respectively. Compared with the sound eye, amblyopic eye performance was worse when reading orally with respect to rate (P < .001), accuracy (P = .03), and fluency (P < .001). Reading comprehension scores were similar with the amblyopic and fellow eyes (P = .45). Similar results were found with respect to original treatment group assignment (atropine or patching). There was a modest correlation between interocular difference (IOD) of VA at age 10 years and IOD in reading rate (r = 0.37; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.18 to 0.56) and fluency (r = 0.28; 95% CI, 0.08 to 0.49). There was no correlation between the IOD in VA and IOD in accuracy (r = 0.08; 95% CI, −0.14 to 0.30) or comprehension (r = 0.16; 95% CI, −0.05 to 0.37).
Conclusions
The monocular oral reading ability when measured with the GORT-4 was slightly worse when reading with previously treated amblyopic eyes compared with fellow eyes in terms of rate, accuracy, and fluency, but reading comprehension testing was similar.
aWilmer Ophthalmological Institute, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
ABSTRACT