Sensory filters

Post Reply New Topic

Auditory filters have already been discussed in the Hearing Problems thread - the fact that CAPD is common among aspies. (Not being able to hear in noisy environments, because your brain doesn't filter out the background noise and your attention by default wants to focus on that instead of the important stuff.)

What about visual filters? Does anyone have problems with that? (Maybe this one is more of an adhd thing.) The same thing happens to me visually - the unimportant background stuff doesn't get filtered out. Any movement that I see in my peripheral vision will grab my attention away from what I'm supposed to be focusing on. It's especially annoying when someone is talking to me and I keep looking away from them to check out other unimportant stimuli. If I'm somewhere where there's a lot going on around me, the thought sometimes crosses my mind that it would be nice to have those blinders like a horse wears so I can't see so much of the extra stuff around me.

This stuff sometimes comes in handy though. I work in a group home (taking care of 5 mentally challenged adults) and I almost always know exactly where everyone is and what they're doing at any given moment. My coworkers have commented on it and I tell them, "I see EVERYTHING... I hear EVERYTHING... you can't get anything past me!" The downside of all this is that I seem to be pretty prone to overload because my brain is trying to take in so much sensory input all at once all the time.

I was going to post about this anyway, you have given me a fine opportunity!
Just today I went for testing for Irlen Syndrome/Scotopic Sensitivity.
It's a perceptual problem that's hard to detect using standard visual tests. It can affect a lot of areas in your life that you are not even aware of, such as energy levels, listening, attention span, mental health and work production. IS is a common comorbid condition for those with AS, ADHD, dyslexia and other learning difficulties.
My problems involve light sensitivity, difficulties concentrating, headaches, no depth perception.

The Irlen Method is a technique that uses coloured filters, worn as glasses to help reduce or eliminate the difficulties. The number of combinations of colours are almost limitless, so the testing is pretty intense.

I will post more tomorrow, as that is the second half of my testing.

For information on the Irlen method you can try: www.irlen.com

Interesting, I'll have to do some reading on that.

I checked out that website. One thing I found really interesting was where they said "This type of perceptual processing disorder affects 12-14% of the population; this number increases to almost 50% in the autistic population." I've never heard of it - you'd think it would come up on these boards more often. In the longer of the two self-tests I could say yes to a lot of the questions. None of the questions were quite what I was referring to in my original post though, I think it's something different. Sounds like I have more issues going on than I thought I did - yet another ingredient to add to that neurological alphabet soup.

I have found that wearing blue lenses really helps me with this problem - and it is interesting that I wore blue or purple glasses most of my life and said that they made things look normal . . .
In fact, I can see in 3-D with blue lenses on which is a rather creepy thing, seeing as how 3D is not the way I usually see . . .

I had a formal Irlen diagnosis done and, honestly, I didn't find they did anything different than what I did after reading their book and ordering some filters and playing around with them . . . but it just depends on how you process information, etc . . . as to what is best for you . . .
If you go to Donna William's web site she talks some about her experiences with Irlens and she talks about them in 'Like Color For The Blind' also . . .