Eye-hand coordination skills in children with and without amblyopia

To investigate whether binocular information provides benefits for programming and guidance of reach-to-grasp movements in normal children and whether these eye-hand coordination skills are impaired in children with amblyopia and abnormal binocularity.

Reach-to-grasp performance of the preferred hand in binocular versus monocular (dominant or nondominant eye occluded) conditions to different objects (two sizes, three locations, and two to three repetitions) was quantified by using a 3D motion-capture system. The participants were 36 children (age, 5-11 years) and 11 adults who were normally sighted and 21 children (age, 4-8 years) who had strabismus and/or anisometropia. Movement kinematics and error rates were compared for each viewing condition within and between subject groups.

The youngest control subjects used a mainly programmed (ballistic) strategy and collided with the objects more often when viewing with only one eye, while older children progressively incorporated visual feedback to guide their reach and, eventually, their grasp, resulting in binocular advantages for both movement components resembling those of adult performance. Amblyopic children were the worst performers under all viewing conditions, even when using the dominant eye. They spent almost twice as long in the final approach to the objects and made many (1.5-3 times) more errors in reach direction and grip positioning than their normal counterparts, these impairments being most marked in those with the poorest binocularity, regardless of the severity or cause of their amblyopia.

The importance of binocular vision for eye-hand coordination normally increases with age and use of online movement guidance. Restoring binocularity in children with amblyopia may improve their poor hand action control.