Stereopsis, stereotests, and their relation to vision screening and clinical practice

Abstract

Tests of stereopsis have many uses in ophthalmic practice, especially in the examination of children. Stereotests are recommended as a way to improve paediatric vision screening programs, to provide an overall indication of binocularity and to monitor binocularity in amblyopia therapy or contact lens monovision. There are currently many stereotests available to practitioners and careful consideration must be given to the applicability of a particular test. The correct stereotest for a particular task is critically dependent on the perceptual age of the patient and the type of information the clinician wants to gather from the test.

Key words:

• amblyopia
• binocular vision
• refractive error
• stereopsis
• strabismus