- published: 25 Apr 2014
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Scotopic sensitivity syndrome, also known as Irlen Syndrome and Visual Stress Syndrome, approximating in some ways to Meares Irlen syndrome, and 'Visual Stress', refers to visual perceptual disorder(s) affecting primarily reading and writing based activities. Its existence is not recognized as a homogenous condition by the American Academy of Pediatrics or the American Optometric Association, although its symptomatic occurrence is accepted by the latter and has never been contested by the former (see skepticism below). It is accepted as a homogenous condition however by a respected body of international expert medical opinion, and has been studied in the former Applied Psychology Unit, Cambridge University in the UK, and the Scottish Parliament has also funded a research and treatment centre at the Glasgow Caledonian University, for the associated condition of Meares/Irlen Syndrome.
Irlen syndrome is sometimes categorised as a form of dyslexia. However, bestselling autistic author, Donna Williams, in her book Like Colour To The Blind wrote about her experience of tinted lenses (Irlen filters) after being diagnosed with scotopic sensitivity. In this book she described the lenses as enabling her to have cohesive, unfragmented vision, able to see faces, bodies and objects as a whole for the first time and reducing the extremity of experiences such as meaning-blindness, face blindness, inability to learn to read facial expression and body language and the social consequences of these impairments. This led to a worldwide raised awareness of scotopic sensitivity as a sensory perceptual problem common in many (but not all) people with autism and expanded awareness of the potential effects of Scotopic Sensitivity far beyond that of reading disability, also leading to awareness of the effects of fluorescent lighting on those with this perceptual disorder.