The impact of wearing glasses on early literacy

The impact of wearing glasses on early literacy
In the previous issue of Best Evidence in Brief, we reported on our Johns Hopkins study that showed how wearing glasses improved children's reading. A similar study by Alison Bruce and colleagues looks at the impact of wearing glasses on children's eyesight and early literacy in the UK.
 
Born in Bradford is a longitudinal study looking at the progress of a multi-ethnic birth cohort in the city of Bradford, England. From this cohort, 2,930 children underwent a vision screening test in their Reception year (pre-K). The 432 children who failed the test were referred for follow-up (usually being prescribed glasses) and comprised the treatment group. A further 512 children who passed the sight test were chosen at random to make up the control group. All the children completed tests of literacy (Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests-Revised) and vocabulary (British Vocabulary Picture Scale) at school entry (Kindergarten) and after 12 months and 24 months. At the same time, researchers checked that the children were wearing their glasses.
 
The visual acuity of all children improved during the study, but those children who wore their glasses improved most and almost closed the gap on the control children. Letter identification scores declined by 1.5% for every one line reduction (on the LogMar sight chart) in visual acuity. The effect size of wearing glasses was +0.11. The results suggest that failure to wear glasses has implications for young children's vision and education. Wearing glasses improves both visual acuity and has the potential to improve literacy.

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