
Next week is Dyslexia Awareness Week (DAW)
It will take place from Monday 1st to Sunday 7th of October 2018, with World Dyslexia Awareness Day being celebrated on Thursday 4th October. With this in mind, we thought what better opportunity for us to mention our Visual Stress Assessment Service. If you are a teacher or learning support specialist, you will know that solving undiagnosed reading difficulties can be time-consuming and often frustrating. Especially when conventional therapies fail to yield the results you had hoped for. Maybe you are a concerned parent with a child who is struggling with their reading. It is very easy to assume that your child or young adult is simply dyslexic, but are they? There has been much research, producing a good amount of evidence that suggests that some children, young people and even adults, may be experiencing some form of visual disturbance, caused by the way their brain processes visual information while they read.Symptoms include;
- Losing track while reading
- Becoming very tired
- Showing fear or reluctance to read
What is Visual Stress
Visual Stress is a term used to describe visual discomfort and perceptual distortions when looking at stressful patterns. Symptoms can be experienced in varying degrees from simple fatigue when reading, to an inability to look at text.
Visual stress (Meares-Irlen syndrome), coloured overlays and colorimetry.
Children and adults can both suffer from visual discomfort when reading. It is estimated that approximately 5% of the population are severely affected by Visual Stress. A further 20% to a lesser degree. Visual Stress can affect reading fluency, concentration and comprehension often causing rapid fatigue. Symptoms of Visual Stress can cause the apparent movement of print, the appearance of rivers running through the print and headaches /eye strain.Visual stress is found to exist in many conditions including:
- Dyslexia
- Dyspraxia
- Photosensitive Migraine
- Photosensitive Epilepsy
- Autism
- ADHD
- Head Injuries
- Multiple Sclerosis
Assessment for the relief of visual stress
This is a three-step process and begins with a thorough eye test and vision assessment to check for possible causes of headaches or difficulties with reading. Our optometrist will carry out a series of tests to check for any visual or eye health problems. This can help to rule out any other causes of symptoms such as needing spectacles, or a binocular vision (eye muscle) problem. Our optometrist will also look at the eye in detail to make sure it is healthy. This part is essential even if a recent eye examination has been carried out elsewhere as it contains tests that may have not been performed as part of the standard eye examination.The overlay assessment.
This appointment is usually carried out by a dispensing optician or optometrist. We have a range of overlays (coloured perspex sheets) to try. Each sheet is tried in turn to determine which gives the most comfortable and effective rate of reading. We measure the reading speed with and without the overlays in place to see if any benefit is obtained.
Colorimetry assessment
Developed in partnership with the University of Essex and Professor Arnold Wilkins, the colourimeter embodies cutting-edge technology. Provide an innovative digital solution allowing the parameters of hue, saturation and brightness to be explored systematically. The Colorimetry assessment will take approximately one hour, it is carried out by a fully qualified optician or optometrist. You will be asked to look into the Intuitive Colorimeter and shown different colour filters to determine which colour reduces disturbances in the text. Young children may wish to bring a favourite book along with them.
Visual Stress and Migraine
A migraine is a particularly acute form of a headache, and sufferers often experience unbearable pain during an attack. A significant proportion of migraines are induced by visual stress. For anyone with visual stress-related migraines, relief can sometimes be achieved by looking at particular colours. Lights and visual patterns can cause incredibly painful headaches and can result in a condition called photophobia. Migraines can become so stressful and unbearable that sufferers will do anything to get away from whatever bright lights and coloured patterns induce the symptoms.