Uses
The Frisby Stereotest is a vision diagnostic tool used across a wide range of clinical, screening, educational, and professional settings. They are administered by optometrists (opticians), orthoptists, opthamologists and other health care and occupational workers. In both routine exams and targeted assessments, the Frisby Sterotest provides a quick, accurate, and non-invasive assessment of stereovision, evaluating how well the eyes work together, and guiding treatment decisions such as vision therapy, corrective lenses, or referrals for further specialist care.
Clinical, Educational and Occupational Applications
Screening for Babies and Children:
The Frisby Stereotest is particularly well-suited for early detection of visual issues in very young children, due to its ease of use and simple but engaging design. Because it doesn’t require the use of special glasses, it is ideal for screening infants and toddlers.
Nursery Education Settings:
Assessing stereovision can be an important part of evaluating a child’s readiness for school, as it can impact hand-eye coordination and sports, reading, and learning development.
Early Years School Vision and Medical Examinations:
Stereotests are sometimes included in vision screening programmes within schools to identify children who may require further ophthalmological evaluation by specialist eye clinicians. Individual countries have differing approaches to early years' vision screening programmes. In the UK, policy varies across England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.
Adult Assessment for Certain Occupations:
There are certain professional and occupational uses of the Frisby Stereotest to support assessment of the suitability to work in areas such as:
Fitness for Specialised Driving: Good stereovision - influencing depth perception and spatial awareness - is important for operating certain vehicles - for example, forklift trucks. The Frisby Stereotest has also been used as a method to assess stereopsis in train drivers in the French national rail system.
Specialist Professions: Certain careers, such as pilots, surgeons, and engineers, require precise depth perception and stereovision. The Frisby Stereotest supports compulsory occupational aptitude assessments for these roles.
Performance Sports: In sports, exceptional stereovision contributes to hand-eye coordination, timing, and spatial judgment — all critical for high-level performance. Stereotests including the Frisby,are used to assess these visual capabilities in athletes.
Career Guidance for Apprentices: For professions requiring excellent visual-motor skills and depth perception - electricians, mechanics, and designers - stereotests can help guide career choices based on visual aptitude.
Who Uses the Frisby Stereotest?
Optometrists (Opticians)
In optometry practices, stereotests are used to assess the quality of binocular vision and depth perception and are included as part of a comprehensive eye examination. While optometrists (also known as opticians in the UK) primarily focus on vision correction and eye health, evaluating stereopsis is important when investigating visual efficiency and coordination.
Stereotests help identify issues like strabismus (eye misalignment), amblyopia (lazy eye), and difficulties with eye teaming, which can affect depth perception and overall visual comfort. These tests are particularly valuable when patients report symptoms like double vision, poor hand-eye coordination, or depth judgment problems.
Paediatric Eye Care - Paediatricians and Early Years Health Clinicians
Stereotests are useful in paediatric eye care, where early detection of binocular vision issues can significantly and positively impact a child’s visual development and learning abilities. By identifying reduced stereovision early, optometrists, doctors and health visitors can refer children for specialised orthoptic care if needed.
Orthoptic Practices
In orthoptic clinics, the emphasis is on improving functional binocular vision and visual coordination, with orthoptists evaluating how well the eyes work together. Stereotests are used to assess, diagnose, and manage the treatment of binocular vision disorders like amblyopia (lazy eye), strabismus, and convergence insufficiency. They play a key part in patients' ongoing treatment plan, which may include non-surgical interventions such as vision therapy, patching, or prisms.
As it aids the management and success of treatment over time, stereotests are valuable in post-treatment follow-ups, providing objective measures of visual function improvement and ensuring that stereovision is maintained or restored. The Frisby Stereotest is often the preferred test of UK orthoptists, valued as offering reliable assessments for both initial diagnoses and ongoing patient care.
Ophthalmology Hospital Departments
When visual abnormalities are detected during initial screenings, or when a known visual disorder exists, the Frisby Stereotest helps ophthalmologists as a diagnostic and treatment management device for underlying eye health isssues that affect binocular vision and depth perception.
Why Stereovision Testing Is Gaining Importance in Optometry
In the past, stereovision testing was often overlooked in opticians' routine eye examinations due to a belief that the brain’s neural pathways for binocular vision were fixed by the age of 1 year, and that little could be done to improve stereovision beyond this early critical period.
However, emerging research on neuroplasticity has reshaped this understanding. It’s now clear that the brain retains a remarkable ability to adapt and develop new connections well beyond early childhood, meaning issues with stereovision can often be improved or corrected through vision therapy and other treatments.
As a result, testing for stereovision is becoming more prevalent in optometry, particularly for older children and teenagers, where interventions have been shown to yield positive outcomes.
Parents, increasingly aware of the importance of good depth perception for their children’s success in school, sports, and everyday activities, are also driving demand for these assessments. By incorporating stereovision testing into routine exams, optometrists play a vital role in identifying and addressing binocular vision issues that might otherwise go undetected, helping children and young people reach their full visual potential.
