A new research has found that Adults born deaf react faster to objects in the far end of their visual field than hearing people.

The study is by University of Sheffield and funded by the Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID), found that children born deaf are slower to react to objects closer to their peripheral vision compared to children with hearing ability.

The study being published in Development Science today points that deaf children between five and 10 years are slower to react, but who were older could react quickly to objects in their peripheral vision compared to normal people.

The research was conducted by Dr Charlotte Codina, from the University's Academic Unit of Ophthalmology and Orthoptics.

"We found that deaf children see less peripherally than hearing children, but, typically, go on to develop better than normal peripheral vision by adulthood. Important vision changes are occurring as deaf children grow-up and one current theory is that they have not yet learnt to focus their attention on stimuli in the periphery until their vision matures at the age of 11 or 12," said Codina. "As research in this area continues, it will be interesting to identify factors which can help deaf children to make this visual improvement earlier."

"This research shows that adults who have been deaf since birth may have advantages over hearing people in terms of their range of vision. For example, deaf people could be more proficient in jobs which depend on the ability to see a wide area of activities and respond quickly to situations, such as sports referees, teachers or CCTV operators," said RNID's Research Program Manager, Dr Joanna Robinson, said.