Reliability of visual orienting response measures in children with and without visual impairments

textabstractBackground: From the need for a quantitative method to examine visual processing in young children, we measured ocular orienting responses to visual stimuli (form, motion, expansion, color, contrast, cartoons). Reliability and applicability of this method were assessed. New method: 80 children (1-12 years) with visual impairments and a reference group of 118 typically developing children (1-6 years) completed two sessions. Test-retest reliability was measured by calculating differences in reaction time and fixation accuracy between the two sessions. For applicability, the cumulative percentage of children that fell within a pre-defined reliability interval was plotted against the mean number of responses. Results: In typically develo