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

Abstract

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.

Keywords: childhood; colour vision; development; eye tracking; prematurity.