Longitudinal Measurements of Visual Diet in Children (VEET)

Visual stimulation plays a critical role in guiding eye growth through activity dependent mechanisms. To date, this visual stimulation or visual diet has been investigated by measuring isolated components including near work, light intensity, or wavelength across different individuals. However, this approach does not address how multiple components of the visual diet interact in the visual development of each individual child. Knowledge gap: There is an urgent need for longitudinal measurements from individual children that incorporate multiple components of the visual environment and visual function as the eye grows and develops. This proposal addresses this gap by measuring longitudinally children's visual diet using a combination of techniques that will record these multiple components with VEET (Visual Environment Evaluation Tool, Meta Reality labs), modern eye tracking, refraction, and biometry. The understanding of the interactions between the visual environment and visual function will allow us to develop more effective approaches for myopia prevention and control.

One major reason that visual diets remain under-investigated is the lack of appropriate technology. The investigators propose to use the novel VEET to measure spectral irradiance, illuminance, viewing distance, and head motion. In addition, the investigators propose to use modern wearable eye tracking to quantify visuomotor response during reading. The investigators' long-term goal is to prevent myopia onset and slow myopia progression in children through an individualized, patient-centered approach that monitors and modifies the visual diet. The specific objective of this proposal is to identify what individual features of the visual diet have the strongest impact on myopia development, and provide specific guidelines to monitor and modify them accordingly in an individualized manner.