Developing culturally safe education practices in optometry schools across Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand.

Access to culturally safe health services is a basic human right, however through the lasting effects of colonisation, oppression, and systemic racism, the individual and community health of Indigenous peoples in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand have been severely impacted. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health and Cultural Safety Strategy of the Australian Health Practitioners Regulation Agency, and the Standards of Cultural Competence and Cultural Safety of the Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians Board of New Zealand, recognise the importance of access to safe health care for Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and Maori patients, which encompasses both clinical competency and cultural safety. Universities have an ongoing responsibility to ensure their learning and teaching activities result in graduates being able to provide culturally safe practice. This article highlights the emergence of culturally safe practices in the Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand optometry curricula over the last five years incorporating Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing into the curricula, understanding the local Indigenous histories and contexts, the adoption of online cultural education modules, and clinical placement partnerships with local Indigenous communities. Whilst there is still much work to do to achieve the goal of graduating culturally safe optometrists, this paper focuses on features that enable or impede progress in the development of culturally safe practices within the optometry programmes to improve eye health equity for Indigenous recognise the diversity of Indigenous cultures across Australia and NZ.

Global motion perception in 2-year-old children: a method for psychophysical assessment and relationships with clinical measures of visual function.

PURPOSE: We developed and validated a technique for measuring global motion perception in 2-year-old children, and assessed the relationship between global motion perception and other measures of visual function. METHODS: Random dot kinematogram (RDK) stimuli were used to measure motion coherence thresholds in 366 children at risk of neurodevelopmental problems at 24 ± 1 months of age. RDKs of variable coherence were presented and eye movements were analyzed offline to grade the direction of the optokinetic reflex (OKR) for each trial. Motion coherence thresholds were calculated by fitting psychometric functions to the resulting datasets. Test-retest reliability was assessed in 15 children, and motion coherence thresholds were measured in a group of 10 adults using OKR and behavioral responses. Standard age-appropriate optometric tests also were performed. RESULTS: Motion coherence thresholds were measured successfully in 336 (91.8%) children using the OKR technique, but only 31 (8.5%) using behavioral responses. The mean threshold was 41.7 ± 13.5% for 2-year-old children and 3.3 ± 1.2% for adults. Within-assessor reliability and test-retest reliability were high in children. Children's motion coherence thresholds were significantly correlated with stereoacuity (LANG I & II test, ρ = 0.29, P < 0.001; Frisby, ρ = 0.17, P = 0.022), but not with binocular visual acuity (ρ = 0.11, P = 0.07). In adults OKR and behavioral motion coherence thresholds were highly correlated (intraclass correlation = 0.81, P = 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Global motion perception can be measured in 2-year-old children using the OKR. This technique is reliable and data from adults suggest that motion coherence thresholds based on the OKR are related to motion perception. Global motion perception was related to stereoacuity in children.