PurposeTo investigate the binocular summation (BiS) of visual acuity (VA) and contrast sensitivity (CS) in children with intermittent exotropia (IXT) before and after surgery and to probe the relationship between the two BiS phenomena and corresponding influencing factors.MethodsThis prospective study included 21 IXT children (11 males and 10 females; aged 6–13 years) who underwent strabismus surgery in Tianjin Eye Hospital from January to April 2022. The visual function was assessed preoperatively and 2.95 ± 0.14 months postoperatively, including monocular/ binocular visual acuity (MVA/BVA) at 100% contrast and 2.5% contrast as well as monocular/binocular contrast sensitivity (MCS/BCS), deviation, near and distant stereopsis, and fusion.ResultsAll patients had postoperative deviation ranging from 0 to -4 PD. Either preoperative or postoperative BVA at 2.5% contrast was superior to the MVA. The postoperative BiS at 2.5% contrast was significantly superior to the preoperative BiS for 2.5% contrast and postoperative BiS for 100% contrast (P< 0.05). Except for 3 c/d, the MCS and BCS at 6 c/d, 12 c/d and 18 c/d spatial frequencies were all notably improved postoperatively. The postoperative binocular summation ratio of CS (BSR) was highest while interocular difference ratio of CS (IOR) was the lowest at 6 c/d among 4 spatial frequencies. The deviation, distant and near stereopsis, and fusion performance were all remarkably improved after surgery (p= 0.001;p= 0.041;p= 0.000), all of which were not related to BVA at 2.5% contrast, BiS, BSC and BSR. The BCS at middle and high frequencies (6 c/ds, 12 c/ds, and 18 c/ds) was significantly negatively correlated with the BVA at 2.5% contrast, and BSR was irrelevant to the corresponding IOR across different spatial frequencies.ConclusionBVA at low contrast and BCS examinations were not equivalent to stereopsis and fusion status, which contributed to the evaluation of binocular function in the real environment and in the different aspects. BVA in 2.5% contrast is related with BCS in moderate and high spacial frequencies (especially 18c/d) but BCS in 6c/d presents more binocular summation of contrast sensitivity. MCS, BCS and the BSR persist inhibition at 3c/d after surgery. The improvement of BCS is better than that of BSR to evaluate the binouclar function in IXT. Those two methods showed different sensitivities to impairment and rehabilitation of binocular summation and inhibition.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12886-023-02961-x.