What is MEVU?

The Measure of Early Vision Use, or MEVU, is a tool designed to assess how well your child uses their vision in everyday activities, interactions and environments. MEVU was developed for children with cerebral palsy, however it may be useful for other populations. MEVU is a questionnaire for parents and caregivers to complete and focuses on early visual behaviours. MEVU describes typical performance in everyday activities, not best performance.

MEVU is different to a test of the eyes - other factors such as cognition or motor skills might also explain your child’s ability to use (or not use) vision in everyday activities. In MEVU it doesn’t matter ‘why’ - your answers are all about ‘how’ vision is used.

MEVU asks questions about a child’s following visual behaviours:

  1. Reacts
  2. Visually attends to people
  3. Visually attends to toys & objects
  4. Visually attends to what the hands are doing
  5. Visually attends to books & pictures
  6. Visually attends to digital screens
  7. Uses vision over distance
  8. Shifts looking
  9. Follows
  10. Searches for & Finds
  11. Shares visual attention
  12. Responds to details
  13. Time to respond
  14. Overall use of vision

Why would I complete MEVU on my child?

To find out how a child uses vision in everyday activities we must ask parents and caregivers who know the child well. MEVU asks questions about visual behaviours that can be observed by people familiar with your child - you!

MEVU might be helpful for these children:

  • Young children because early visual behaviours influence other areas of development and learning;
  • Children of any age where there is a concern about how vision is used;
  • Describing how well any child uses their vision. For some children, visual skills can be a strength, and understanding a child’s ability can also help a child use their visual skills in other areas of development and learning.

MEVU might be helpful for these reasons:

  • It gives a language and way to describe how a child uses their vision;
  • Completing MEVU gives a score that may help with goal setting, and planning and monitoring therapy;
  • Understanding how well a child uses vision is relevant to everyone working with the child.

MEVU should not be used as an alternative to vision/eye tests.

Where can I find MEVU? And what do I need to do?

MEVU is currently only available as a research tool. Whilst MEVU appears to be a valid and useful tool, we need more information about its validity and reliability before it is recommended as a good tool to use. If you would like to help with further testing of MEVU you can complete MEVU for your child within one of our research studies. See ongoing research for more information.

When completing MEVU you (the parent or caregiver) need to answer 14 questions about your child’s use of vision in everyday activities, interactions and environments. You should answer the questions based on your observations of your child. Each question has four response options and you need to select the response that best describes your child.

If you are a health or educational professional or a researcher who is interested in using MEVU please contact the research team. MEVU is currently only available as a research version as further psychometric testing is important.

For more information please contact the research team via this form