The myopic children in the Orinda Longitudinal Study of Myopia do indeed have longer eyes than the non-myopic study participants. In a recent discovery, however, the OLSM scientific team has learned that besides being too long, the eyes of myopic children are also a different shape than non-myopic eyes. This different shape is strongly characteristic of myopic eyes, every bit as characteristic as their extra length. What s even more interesting is that this different shape may have something to do with how the eye became too long. Added to OLSM measurements in 1995, the technique to check the shape of the eye called peripheral refraction is quick, simple, and precise.
Children already have their prescription measured by a computerized device called an autorefractor.
Don Mutti and Nina Friedman use it to take pictures. Autorefraction has the special property of being very precise. It measures a prescription to within 0.32 diopters, a fraction of a unit of focal power. This shape appears to indicate that the eye was able to grow in all dimensions while staying in proportion. The eye didn t get too long because the crystalline lens inside the eye changed by the right amount.