Exploring visual search performance in preschool children with Cerebral Visual Impairment: A modified approach

Marinke Hokken; Silke Verboom; Christiaan Geldof; Paola  Escudero; Marlou Kooiker; Johan Pel

doi:10.1177/02646196251317958

Exploring visual search performance in preschool children with Cerebral Visual Impairment: A modified approach

Marinke Hokken^*, Silke Verboom, Christiaan Geldof, Paola Escudero, Marlou Kooiker, Johan Pel

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

Visual search difficulties are common in children with cerebral visual impairment (CVI), due to higher-order visual selective attention (VSA) deficits. However, little is known about children with CVI below 6 years. This international multi-centre study explored VSA through search performance and efficiency in preschool children aged 3–5 years with CVI (n = 24), or a CVI-risk (n = 20) compared with neurotypical children (n = 47). Search performance on the paper–pencil NEPSY Visual Attention task was measured by accuracy, commission errors, and completion time. Search efficiency was assessed by reconstructing the cancellation path to obtain inter-target distances, intersections, and cluster visits. Children with CVI demonstrated significantly lower accuracy, longer completion times, greater inter-target distances, and more revisits to clusters of targets compared with both CVI-risk and neurotypical children. We conclude that by using a modified approach of a paper–pencil search task, first signs of global and local VSA deficits can be detected, offering clinical insights.

Original language	English
Journal	British Journal of Visual Impairment
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/02646196251317958
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 17 Feb 2025

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2025.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was funded by the Visio Foundation (OI039055) and International Visiting Scholarship of the MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development at the Western Sydney University. Data collection at the MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development (i.e., Deeanh Sako\u2019s salary and participant payment) was funded by an Australian Research Council grant (FT160100514) awarded to P.E.

Funders	Funder number
Western Sydney University
Visio Foundation	OI039055
Australian Research Council	FT160100514

Keywords

Cerebral visual impairment
preschool children
search efficiency
visual search
visual selective attention

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10.1177/02646196251317958Licence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "Exploring visual search performance in preschool children with Cerebral Visual Impairment: A modified approach",

abstract = "Visual search difficulties are common in children with cerebral visual impairment (CVI), due to higher-order visual selective attention (VSA) deficits. However, little is known about children with CVI below 6 years. This international multi-centre study explored VSA through search performance and efficiency in preschool children aged 3–5 years with CVI (n = 24), or a CVI-risk (n = 20) compared with neurotypical children (n = 47). Search performance on the paper–pencil NEPSY Visual Attention task was measured by accuracy, commission errors, and completion time. Search efficiency was assessed by reconstructing the cancellation path to obtain inter-target distances, intersections, and cluster visits. Children with CVI demonstrated significantly lower accuracy, longer completion times, greater inter-target distances, and more revisits to clusters of targets compared with both CVI-risk and neurotypical children. We conclude that by using a modified approach of a paper–pencil search task, first signs of global and local VSA deficits can be detected, offering clinical insights.",

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AU - Escudero, Paola

AU - Kooiker, Marlou

AU - Pel, Johan

PY - 2025/2/17

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N2 - Visual search difficulties are common in children with cerebral visual impairment (CVI), due to higher-order visual selective attention (VSA) deficits. However, little is known about children with CVI below 6 years. This international multi-centre study explored VSA through search performance and efficiency in preschool children aged 3–5 years with CVI (n = 24), or a CVI-risk (n = 20) compared with neurotypical children (n = 47). Search performance on the paper–pencil NEPSY Visual Attention task was measured by accuracy, commission errors, and completion time. Search efficiency was assessed by reconstructing the cancellation path to obtain inter-target distances, intersections, and cluster visits. Children with CVI demonstrated significantly lower accuracy, longer completion times, greater inter-target distances, and more revisits to clusters of targets compared with both CVI-risk and neurotypical children. We conclude that by using a modified approach of a paper–pencil search task, first signs of global and local VSA deficits can be detected, offering clinical insights.

AB - Visual search difficulties are common in children with cerebral visual impairment (CVI), due to higher-order visual selective attention (VSA) deficits. However, little is known about children with CVI below 6 years. This international multi-centre study explored VSA through search performance and efficiency in preschool children aged 3–5 years with CVI (n = 24), or a CVI-risk (n = 20) compared with neurotypical children (n = 47). Search performance on the paper–pencil NEPSY Visual Attention task was measured by accuracy, commission errors, and completion time. Search efficiency was assessed by reconstructing the cancellation path to obtain inter-target distances, intersections, and cluster visits. Children with CVI demonstrated significantly lower accuracy, longer completion times, greater inter-target distances, and more revisits to clusters of targets compared with both CVI-risk and neurotypical children. We conclude that by using a modified approach of a paper–pencil search task, first signs of global and local VSA deficits can be detected, offering clinical insights.

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Exploring visual search performance in preschool children with Cerebral Visual Impairment: A modified approach

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Keywords

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