Testing Visual Perception

Most people would prefer to lose their right arm than lose their eyesight. It is scary for a sighted person to think of the possibility of losing one’s eyesight, yet it occurs to people every day for various reasons. One of these reasons can be autism.

Autism affects different children in different ways, which is one of the reasons why it is so difficult for doctors and therapists to help it. One of the worst things that can affect autistic children is a loss or diminution of visual perception or, to put it bluntly, eyesight.

Naturally, if a child has problems seeing, then it makes learning even more difficult and it isolates that child even more than it was before, since a sensation of isolation is one of the foremost symptoms of autism. However, there are certain exercises that your child’s therapist can teach you which might help improve your child’s eyesight.

It is a characteristic of autism that the sufferer experiences sensory overload or distortion. It is as if the autistic child’s brain cannot deal with what it sees and hears quickly enough, so it sometimes shuts down.

Numerous autistic children also have trouble reading for this very reason, however, some individuals who are not autistic can also suffer from this difficulty. Some people with extreme dyslexia can undergo a comparable experience. If the parents of an autistic child have these problems as well, then it could exacerbate the visual perception of the autistic child.

Some crowd, whether autistic, dyslexic or not have a problem with certain colour combinations and some of those have a problem with black and white, which are of course the colours used on a book’s pages. It is possible to improve the readability of a page of type by using the Irene Method, which involves putting a colour filter over the page thus altering the black and white colour blend.

If the doctor or therapist of your child has not suggested the Irene Method, you could bring the issue up or just try it yourself. All you need is several sheets of different coloured cellophane. Blue, red, yellow and green are easy to find and you can overlay two or three of these to make even more colours.

Lay them on top of the page and see if your child finds one of them easier to read. You may even find that you find one of these new colour combinations easier for you as well. If this works, a pair of specs with tinted lenses my help your child’s visual perception on a more permanent basis.

In the same manner, some children’s visual perception is improved by replacing the regular white light incandescent or tube lights in the child’s bedroom with a light that is more comfortable on his or her eyes.

These different colour lights and different colour lenses can help your child better judge depth or perspective and can help reduce the confusion that sensory overload can cause. If you can achieve this, you will be constructing a big difference to your child’s quality of life.

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