[Efficacy of visual cognitive function tests in health examinations of five-year-old children]

Health examination programs for five-year-old children are aimed at effectively detecting developmental disorders, such as attention deficit/hyperactivity disorders (AD/HD), learning disorders (LD), higher functioning autistic spectrum disorders (HFASD), and other abnormalities. Tests usually include a questionnaire and observation of group playing, verbal communication, and soft neurological signs; however, it is often difficult to detect children who have LD with visual cognitive dysfunctions through such conventional examination techniques. Here, we analyzed the efficacy of using a battery of visual cognitive function tests to identify such cases.

We employed four simple tests to evaluate visual cognitive function in addition to a standard health examination for five-year-old between April 2008 and March 2010. To analyze visual cognitive function tests, the results were scored and the applicability of these tests was verified by comparisons with established tests.

A total of 653 five-year-old children underwent health examinations, and 48 children were referred to the hospital for further examinations. As a result, 34 children were newly diagnosed with developmental disorders, including HFASD, AD/HD, LD, and mild intellectual disturbances. Strong correlations were seen between the scores of these four examinations and those of other established tests, such as the performance intelligence score, the perceptual organization index of WISC-III, and the Frostig visual development test score. An additional benefit of our method was that parents could easily recognize developmental disorders in their children through direct observation of these examinations.

We concluded that the battery of visual cognitive function tests was simple and useful for detecting developmental disorders in the health examinations of five-year-old children.