Outpatient assessment of neurovisual functions in children with Cerebral Palsy

Abstract

This study examined the feasibility of the Atkinson Battery for Child Development for Examining Functional Vision (Atkinson, Anker, Rae, et al., 2002) to evaluate neurovisual functions of children with neurodevelopmental disorders in outpatient setting. A total of 90 patients underwent a comprehensive evaluation. Among these, a group of 33 children with Cerebral Palsy (CP), mean age 6 years, with different types of CP (26% diplegic, 37% hemiplegic and 37% tetraplegic) were selected to constitute the cohort of the study. Visual sensory measures as well as higher level visual functions were considered. Overall, 73% patients had impairments at the assessment protocol, the majority of which presenting difficulties on both visuoperceptual and visuospatial tasks (79%). Subgroups of participants presented similar profiles of impairments with spared basic visuocognitive abilities and limitations in visuoperceptual and visuospatial domains. The Atkinson's battery proved to be valuable for evaluation in outpatient setting and follow-up testing. Some limitations emerged. For the definition of personalized and detailed rehabilitation programs a breakdown of the different components of vision and subsequent in-depth evaluation are needed.