Relation between tonic accommodation and visual perceptual skills development in 6- to 12-year-old children

Refractive status has been shown to be related to both tonic accommodation (TA) and visual perceptual skills (VPS) development in children. The purpose of this study was to investigate possible direct links between TA and VPS development, independent of refractive status. The TA and VPS of 162 children (29 hyperopic, 81 emmetropic, 52 myopic) were assessed clinically. Analysis of the data corroborated the aforementioned relation between refractive status and TA, and between refractive status and VPS, but also revealed substantial within-refractive-group variability in TA and a highly significant relation between TA and VPS. The evidence indicates that children with high TA are much more likely to have delays in VPS development than are children with low TA, regardless of their refractive status.