Honoring Dr. Lea Hyvärinen
New England College of Optometry (NECO) invites you to join us for
A Pediatric Symposium
in honor of Lea Hyvärinen, MD, PhD, FAAP
on the occasion of her 85th birthday
January 22, 2025
7:30–8:30PM
1.00 hour | COPE Pending | Zoom
Symposium Title
Amblyopia Treatment: How Clinical Trials are Redefining Patient Care
Symposium Speaker
Susan Cotter, OD, MS, FAAO
Professor, Southern California College of Optometry
Associate Dean for University Research, Marshall B. Ketchum University (MBKU)
Immediate Past President, American Academy of Optometry
Make a Donation Today!
In honor of Dr. Lea Hyvärinen’s 85th birthday, please consider making a gift to celebrate her legacy and lifelong dedication to improving vision in pediatric patients. Your support will directly benefit the Dr. Lea Hyvärinen Pediatric Optometry Endowed Fund.
About Dr. Lea Hyvärinen
Dr. Lea Hyvärinen is a Finnish ophthalmologist who after her doctoral dissertation on experimental fluorescein angiography in Finland, was invited to work (1967-1969) as Dr. A. Edward Maumenee’s Fellow at the Wilmer Institute, Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD. Dr. Hyvärinen was given the opportunity to start the first clinical fluorescein angiographic laboratory which provided new insight in diabetic retinopathy, retinitis pigmentosa, and histoplasmosis. At the Wilmer Institute, she worked closely with Dr. Louise Sloan and her team in vision rehabilitation. These experiences strongly influenced Dr. Hyvärinen’s career in vision rehabilitation and further development of vision assessment techniques.
Dr. Hyvärinen worked with her late husband’s Juhani Hyvärinen’s research group at the Institute of Physiology at University of Helsinki (1971-1983) on visual deprivation studies of monkeys. These investigations showed that early vision deprivation permanently changes function in the neural networks normally combining visual information with other sensory information and ongoing activities. As a result, vision loses its presentation in cortical functions. These studies helped form her theoretical foundation in early intervention.
Dr. Hyvärinen is best known for the LH Vision Test System, now known as LEA TEST VISION SYSTEM™. She started the optotype development in 1976 with Dr. Veijo Virsu’s team at the Department of Psychology. In 1977, the first LH tests were printed for testing at the Vision Rehabilitation Centre in Helsinki, Finland and published in 1979 for health care centres in Finland.
The LH Symbols tests (now referred to as LEA SYMBOLS® tests) are used for assessment of vision in children and became popular in 1980’s for vision screening. Dr. Hyvarinen’s first publication on the LH Symbols test was written in Finnish, 1979 and in English, 1980: Hyvärinen L, Näsänen R and Laurinen P. New visual acuity test for pre-school children (1980) Acta Ophthalmol (Copenh) 58:507-511.
About Susan Cotter, OD, MS, FAAO
Dr. Susan Cotter, a Professor of Optometry at the Southern California College of Optometry (SCCO) at Marshall B. Ketchum University, is a pediatric optometrist and clinician-scientist with primary research interests related to clinical management strategies for amblyopia, strabismus, convergence insufficiency, and childhood refractive error. She is the co-Chair of the Pediatric Eye Disease Investigator Group (PEDIG), a clinical research network of 350+ pediatric optometrists and ophthalmologists funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Eye Institute (NEI), who perform clinical investigations related to pediatric eye disorders. Dr. Cotter has served in leadership positions for several large-scale NEI-funded studies – the Multi-Ethnic Pediatric Eye Disease Study (MEPEDS), the Collaborative Longitudinal Evaluation of Refractive Error (CLEERE), the Convergence Insufficiency Treatment Trial (CITT), and the CITT-Attention & Reading Trial (CITT-ART).
Dr. Cotter is the President of the American Academy of Optometry, where she is a Diplomate in Pediatric Optometry, Binocular Vision, and Perception. She is a member of the Scientific Bureau of the World Society of Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus (WSPOS) and served as the Co-Chair of the Public Health & Disparities Research Panel for the NEI’s Strategic Plan for the Future (2021-2025).
An Illinois College of Optometry graduate, Dr. Cotter completed a residency in Children’s Vision at SCCO and received an MS in Clinical & Biomedical Investigations from the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine. She lectures internationally on pediatric eye care and binocular vision, is editor of the textbook Clinical Applications of Prisms, and has contributed to 200+ peer-reviewed publications.