Color vision screening of young children

Early detection of congenital color vision defects is desirable, but school screening studies have been stymied by lack of a suitable test. We evaluated a new color vision test, the APT-5, for use by volunteer screeners in schools and preschools. The screeners tested 1794 children, ages 3 to 13 years, and found the APT-5 easy to use with young children ages 5 years and up. Children who failed the screening were recruited for diagnostic color vision testing; for the children ages 5 to 13 years, 56% of those who failed the screening were successfully recruited. Data analysis indicated that the false-positive rate in this age group was 1% to 2%, and that for boys in this age group the positive predictive value was 71% to 81%. Retest data indicated that most false-positives were not due to the test itself, but to other factors in the school screening situation. Two thirds of all children scored as abnormal by anomaloscopy were simple deuteranomalous, indicating that the APT-5 effectively identified even mild color defects. The results of this trial indicate that the APT-5 is suitable for school color vision screening of children ages 5 years and up.