Colour perception develops throughout childhood with increased risk of deficiencies in children born prematurely

• Published in: Acta Paediatrica Vol. 113; no. 2; pp. 259 - 266
• Main Authors: Pueyo, Victoria, Cedillo Ley, Mauricio, Fanlo‐Zarazaga, Álvaro, Hu, Liu, Pan, Xian, Perez‐Roche, Teresa, Balasanyan, Victoria, Solanas, David, Fernando, Sandra, Prieto, Esther, Yam, Jason C. S., Pham, Chau, Ortin, Marta, Castillo, Olimpia, Gutierrez, Diego, Alejandre, Adrian, Arroyo Yllanes, Maria Estela, Esteban‐Ibañez, Eduardo, Galdós, Marta, Gonzalez, Inmaculada, Huang, Dan, Lacort, Marta, Li, Rui, Lopez, Maialen, Masia, Belen, Pinilla, Juan, Rodriguez Gallardo, Guadalupe, Romero, María, Sestak, Natalia, Vilella, Marina, Tinh, Nguyen Xuan, Hiep, Nguyen Xuan, Zhang, Xiujuan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Norway Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01-02-2024
• Subjects: Child; childhood; Children; Color Perception; Color vision; Color Vision Defects - etiology; colour vision; development; eye tracking; Female; Humans; Infant, Newborn; Infant, Premature; Male; Parturition; Perception; Pregnancy; Premature birth; prematurity; Visual discrimination; Visual Perception; development; prematurity; childhood; eye tracking; colour vision
• ISSN: 0803-5253; 1651-2227; 1651-2227
• DOI: 10.1111/apa.16978

Aim
To quantify the impact of prematurity on chromatic discrimination throughout childhood, from 2 to 15 years of age.
Methods
We recruited two cohorts of children, as part of the TrackAI Project, an international project with seven different study sites: a control group of full‐term children with normal visual development and a group of children born prematurely. All children underwent a complete ophthalmological exam and an assessment of colour discrimination along the three colour axes: deutan, protan and trytan using a DIVE device with eye tracking technology.
Results
We enrolled a total of 1872 children (928 females and 944 males) with a mean age of 6.64 years. Out of them, 374 were children born prematurely and 1498 were full‐term controls. Using data from all the children born at term, reference normative curves were plotted for colour discrimination in every colour axis. Pre‐term children presented worse colour discrimination than full‐term in the three colour axes (p < 0.001). Even after removing from the comparison, all pre‐term children with any visual disorder colour discrimination outcomes remained significantly worse than those from full‐term children.
Conclusion
While colour perception develops throughout the first years of life, children born pre‐term face an increased risk for colour vision deficiencies.