Saccadic eye movements and eye-head coordination in children.

The eye and head movements of nine children, ages 6 through 10, were measured in order to establish quantitative characteristics of eye movements and eye-head corrdination patterns of children with normal vision and reading levels. The relationship between saccade amplitude and duration was linear, but the slope of this relationship indicated that saccades in children may have higher velocities than they do in adults. One of three temporal patterns of head and saccadic eye movement occurred during shifts of gaze to visual targets, depending on the temporal and spatial predictability of the target. It is suggested that quantitative measurements such as these could be used to examine developmental characteristics of eye and eye-head movement control.