Vision for coloured pictures at different acuities: the Sonksen picture guide to visual function

The vision 70 normal-sighted children was tested for both Snellen letters and life-size colour pictures of everyday objects. All the children wore spectacles for the tests: 60 were fitted with lenses which would induce a refractive error, the remainder had glassless frames only. Compared with acuity measures based on the Snellen letters, the pictures needed to be brought much closer than might be expected before the children with induced minor visual errors could recognise them. This highlights the importance of detecting and correcting refractive errors in preschool children who learn from such material, and suggests that the pictures may be a useful tool for detecting children with such errors. 18 pictures, comprising the Sonksen Picture Guide to Visual Function, have now been selected for this purpose.