OUR ADVICE IS TO...
Tell your teachers if you find a photocopy difficult to read. Sometimes, an enlargement can help.
Try to use original prints rather than a photocopy.
The light in the classroom can sometimes be too bright.
Using natural daylight can help as can sometimes turing down the lights.
Tell your teachers if the glare from the lights causes you problems.
Most of us find copying difficult. Copying is horrible because you have to keep your place in two
pieces of text at the same time, and the two pieces of text keep moving and blurring. We often
keep loosing our place. Some of us get headaches very quickly when copying because of the
glare from the board and the paper, and some of us just give up because we find it too difficult.
The text we have copied is often untidy and is full of spelling mistakes. This is because of
continuously loosing our place. Some of us keep writing the same thing again and again. Copying
can be hard, whether from the whiteboard, text books, computer screens, hand-writing or
photocopies. Each category has its own problems...(see other sections) .
Reading can be difficult because letters and words can be skipped, and whole lines and
paragraphs can be easily missed. Reading can be very slow and jerky for us. It takes such a lot
of effort to read sometimes, that we cannot take in what we have read. The page can flash and the
words disappear in the white glare. (This is true even for people wearing coloured glasses).
The font size, colour and type affects how easy it is to read. A font that many find easy to read is
Arial Rounded. Larger fonts (at least 12 or larger) are preferred.
Line spacing is important.
Closely packed lines are very difficult as we just keep trying to read the same line again and again.
Page layout is also important. A cluttered page can be as difficult as can a page with a lot of
white space. The colour of the paper is also important, the worst for many is shiny white paper,
cream (or off-white) paper can make a huge difference.
Many of us get headaches from
reading because it is such hard work. Reading can be physically painful for people with visual
stress (even if we do love reading stories).
Wearing coloured lenses can help hugely reduce the problems associated with visual stress but
can produce their own problems.
One of the greatest problems is they it makes you different from everyone else and that gets you
noticed.
Really dark tints (which mainly mean that person is greatly affected by light) can result in negative
experiences, as other people cannot see your eyes.
The most common annoyance is being asked why you are wearing sunglasses.
In some schools, teasing and bullying can be a problem for those wearing coloured lenses. You
can be labelled as "thick" because you always wear coloured lenses and cannot read quickly.
Many people think that all those who wear coloured lenses are dyslexic. This is not the case,
although a few people with dyslexia are also affected by visual stress.
Some people have prescription lenses which have been tinted so that taking off the coloured
lenses results in removing their optical correction as well. Taking off coloured lenses can result in
immediate headaches and loss of concentration for some people with visual stress.
For many of us, handwriting (including our own) can be difficult to read. Wearing coloured glasses
can help with reading your own handwriting, but does not always remove all the problems.
Sometimes we cannot see the lines on the page that we are trying to write on. (especially if they
are faint).
The lines of handwriting can merge and blur together.
Textbooks can be hugely variable in what kinds of problems they cause. Generally, smaller fonts
on white paper with lots of white space cause the greatest problems. Font type, size and colour
and line spacing can make huge differences. Maths text books cause us the greatest problems.
Many of us have problems with seeing the minus signs for negative numbers (they just get lost in
the whiteness of the page). Copying the correct information (numbers, signs and text) from the
textbooks to paper can be difficult.
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The light from data projectors and rooms full of computer screens can be overwhelming to those with visual stress.
The lights are too bright and give you headaches. For many, the screens are blurry.
Photocopies can sometimes make the contrast between black and white even greater which can
result in more distortions than the original.
Photocopies can sometimes be "blurred" and of poor quality. Sometimes the size of text is also
reduced.
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fluorescent lights in particular cause problems for people with visual stress.
Some of us find computer screens difficult as they give us headaches and are blurred especially
with refresh screens that flicker. Some people have found they get headaches from using
computer screens which wearing coloured glasses has helped, The flat screens are generally
easier than others.
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Exams can be especially difficult when you cannot easily and quickly read the exam paper,
nor your own hand-written answers.
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Some kinds of equipment can be difficult for people with visual stress to use. Several of us find reading the fine gradations on rulers and protractors difficult and often get the wrong measurements however hard we try.
Reading certain clock faces can be difficult for some people, all the figures keep moving.
Cutting accurately along a line with scissors can also be difficult when the line may appear to be moving.
Threading a needle when the needle keeps appearing to move is also tricky.
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Many of us find wordsearches particuarly difficult. All the letters keep moving around making it
impossible to find the "hidden words" which result in headaches from staring at the letters. For
some, wordsearches are just a misery. Some of us find colouring in and keeping "within the lines"
difficult.
Explain to your teacher why colouring in is difficult (the lines keep moving as you are colouring
them!) and try to keep smiling!
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