Visual stress can co-occur with other additional needs, such as dyslexia, autism and ADHD. Therefore, it may be wise for teachers to opt for non-black, but highly pigmented whiteboard pens, such as blue, brown or purple ones.
Use dark coloured text on a light (not white) background. Avoid green and red/pink, as these colours are difficult for those who have colour vision deficiencies (colour blindness). Consider alternatives to white backgrounds for paper, computer and visual aids such as whiteboards.
It is therefore likely that blue light, selected optimally to recruit melanopsin RGCs, will have the greatest effect on improving alertness and concentration and may therefore be the best for remediating the impaired attentional responses seen in dyslexia.
It is claimed that the use of coloured filters and lenses can alleviate visual distortions for people with dyslexia. These overlays are simple translucent pieces of plastic which add colour to text.
Most will have a preferred paper colour, which may not be yellow. Users with dyslexia, other specific learning difficulties or visual impairments are most likely to find materials printed onto coloured paper helpful. It is an erroneous belief that yellow paper benefits all individuals with dyslexia.
It has also been found that students that struggle with reading comprehension perform better with blue overlays on text, and worse with red overlays on text, so it's probably best to avoid the pastel pink, and opt instead for pastel blue, pastel green, pastel yellow, or pastel purple paper.
Taken together, these results suggested that the green filter improved reading performance in children with dyslexia because the filter most likely facilitated cortical activity and decreased visual distortions.
Red is the colour of dyslexia awareness.
Participants without dyslexia tend to prefer color pairs with a higher color and brightness contrast while people with dyslexia read faster when color pairs have lower contrasts.
These glasses help dyslexic patients see texts and words more clearly, which can help speed up their reading pace. ChromaGen lenses are reported to reduce the visual distortions that dyslexic patients see. This is done by altering the wavelength of light that enters their eyes.
Dyslexie font is a typeface – specially designed for people with dyslexia – which enhances the ease of reading and comprehension.
It's recommended that children learn to write using continuous cursive handwriting so they don't have to learn how to form letters twice when they need to write more quickly later on.
Dyslexia fonts use thicker lines in parts of letters. The letters are slanted a bit. And letters that have sticks and tails (b, d, and p) vary in length. Some people with dyslexia like this and find it helpful.
Common mistakes when reading and spelling are mixing up b's and d's, or similar looking words such as 'was' and 'saw', 'how' and 'who'. Letters and numbers can be written back-to-front or upside down. The most common numbers for visual dyslexics to reverse are 9, 5 and 7.
Primary benefits – Pat Wyman's research
She suggests that the overlays help in making the print clear up (by helping the reader in actually viewing what one reads more easily) and lessening the adversity of the visual perceptual problems like Dyslexia.
The results show that using certain background colors have a significant impact on people with and without dyslexia. Warm background colors, Peach, Orange and Yellow, significantly improved reading performance over cool background colors, Blue, Blue Grey and Green.
In addition, Rello and Baeza- Yates also stated that yellow-black are the worst possible combination colours for dyslexia, followed with white- blue and white-black [7]. It proved that high contrasted colours are not beneficial for people with dyslexia.
The dreaded red, a color we've all seen throughout our education. The red marker used to highlight our mistakes is all too familiar for people with dyslexia around the world. Associations have chosen this color to take back its meaning and globally promote dyslexia awareness.
The 4 types of dyslexia include phonological dyslexia, surface dyslexia, rapid naming deficit, and double deficit dyslexia. Dyslexia is a learning disorder where the person often has difficulty reading and interpreting what they read. It is neither infectious nor brought on by vaccinations.
There are many forms of dyslexia and not everyone diagnosed with it experiences reading this way. But seeing nonexistent movement in words and seeing letters like “d”, “b”, “p”, “q” rotated is common among people with dyslexia.
The only way dyslexia can be formally diagnosed is through a Diagnostic Assessment carried out by a certified dyslexia assessor. This assessment will tell you if your child is dyslexic or not.
Serif fonts have hooks at the ends of the letter strokes. They may look decorative, but they can cause reading problems for dyslexic users. Serifs tend to obscure the shapes of letters, making the letters run together [1]. But a sans-serif font would allow dyslexic users to see the shapes of letters clearer.
The writing difficulties of students with dyslexia can be partially attributed to their reading difficulties and can manifest in many ways in their writing, such as poor spelling, poor legibility, lack of diverse vocabulary, poor idea development, and/or lack of organization.
Reading pens are pen shaped electronic devices that scan the printed text on the page and read it aloud via earphones. They are small, portable, discrete devices that, with a school application for Access Arrangements (see other blog posts) can be used in GCSE and GCE (A Level) examinations.