Deaf adults 'have improved vision'

Adults who are born deaf can see better than people with good hearing, according to UK research released today.

A study from the University of Sheffield showed that deaf adults and teenagers react more quickly to objects in their peripheral vision than hearing people.

Dr Joanna Robinson, research programme manager for the Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID), said that the results could have positive consequences for deaf people.

"This research shows that adults who have been deaf since birth may have advantages over hearing people in terms of their range of vision," she explained.

"For example, deaf people could be more proficient in jobs which depend on the ability to see a wide area of activities and respond quickly to situations, such as sports referees, teachers or CCTV operators."

The study, involving 25 deaf children, compared data from a series of tests with the results and characteristics of deaf adult participants.

Each child, aged between five and 15, was asked to fix their vision on a central point and detect a flash of light from an LED 'star', responding by moving a joystick to 'catch the star', similar to playing a computer game.

Researchers found that adults who were born deaf were much faster at detecting and locating changes at the edge of their visual field than the hearing participants.

But deaf children were much slower than hearing children to react to visual stimuli.

Dr Charlotte Cordina, who undertook the study as part of her RNID-funded PhD in Ophthalmology and Orthoptics, said: "We found that deaf children see less peripherally than hearing children, but typically go on to develop better than normal peripheral vision by adulthood.

"Important vision changes are occurring as deaf children grow up and one current theory is that they have not yet learnt to focus their attention on stimuli in the periphery until their vision matures at the age of 11 or 12.

"As research in this area continues, it will be interesting to identify factors which can help deaf children to make this visual improvement earlier."

Dr Robinson added: "The findings suggest that parents of deaf children need to be aware that their child's initially delayed reaction to peripheral movements may mean they are slower to spot and avoid potential dangers such as approaching traffic."