Negative social bias against children with strabismus

Abstract

Purpose: To determine whether the presence of noticeable strabismus creates a negative social bias against children.

Methods: Photographs of two boys and two girls were digitally altered to create photographs of the same child in orthotropic, esotropic and exotropic states. Elementary school teachers rated their perceptions of the children's personal characteristics (using a 10-item list of personal characteristics) based on their responses to these whole-face photographs. The participants were also asked to answer five questions related to the first impressions created by the photographs.

Results: Children with esotropia and exotropia were rated more negatively than orthotropic children on all 10 characteristics. Children with esotropia were rated more negatively than those with exotropia on most of these characteristics.

Conclusions: Children with noticeable strabismus are viewed negatively. Hence, correction of strabismus may provide psychosocial benefits even when there is no hope of improving visual function.