Difficulty: Visual Stress

5 Keywords: Visual Stress, Meares-Irlen Syndrome, Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome, Specific Learning Difficulties, Dyslexia

The Irlen Institute have provided Flash videos of sample distortions of text to illustrate the issues that may arise with visual stress as have TechDis with Sim-dis where they show how a yellow coloured overlay may be helpful.

"Visual stress (sometimes called 'Meares-Irlen Syndrome' or 'Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome') is the experience of unpleasant visual symptoms when reading, especially for prolonged periods. Symptoms include illusions of shape, movement and colour in the text, distortions of the print, loss of print clarity, and general visual irritation. Visual stress can also cause sore eyes, headaches, frequent loss of place when reading, and impaired comprehension." (Lucid Research Limited)

More information on the subject has been written by Professor Arnold Wilkins

Using Coloured overlays, glasses and changing the appearance of webpages and desktop colours on a computer screen can all help.

Tasks

• Task: Reading items on the screen
  • Issue: Internet Explorer does not offer the flexibility of Mozilla Firefox
    • Strategy: Firefox add-ins and adaptations
  • Issue: Glare on the screen
    • Strategy: Screen dulled down and blue
  • Issue: Flickering on the screen
    • Strategy: Monitor in portrait mode and high resolution
  • Issue: Screen glare and resolution settings
    • Strategy: Screen resolution changes and tinted glasses
  • Issue: Difficulties reading some fonts
    • Strategy: Font changed to sans serif Verdana
• Task: Virtual Learning Environment Usage
  • Issue: Blackboard default views
    • Strategy: Blackboard colour and layout changes
• Task: Academic writing
  • Issue: Black text on white background
    • Strategy: Microsoft Word highlighter colours
• Task: Podcasts / Vodcasts (Audio / Video)
  • Issue: Watching videos for revision
    • Strategy: Adjust power settings to dull screen for videos