Are children with strabismus invited to fewer birthday parties?
Six year olds with a squint are significantly less likely to be invited to birthday parties than their peers with normally aligned eyes, suggests research published online in the British Journal of Ophthalmology. The findings prompt the authors to suggest that corrective surgery should be performed not later than the age of 6, which is when the discrimination seems to emerge. The Swiss researchers digitally altered photographs of six children from six identical twin pairs to create inward and outward types of visible squint (strabismus) to compare against normally aligned eyes. One hundred and eighteen children between the ages of 3 and 12, who were either patients at an eye clinic or the siblings of patients, but with normally aligned eyes, were then asked to select which of the identical twins they would be prepared to invite to their birthday party. They were asked to make a choice four times, giving them the chance to select the faces of up to four children with a squint. If squint
