Irlen lenses

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does anyone use irlen lenses for sensory overload, ive got an appointment in sydney and apparently they help with sensory overload in autism spectrum disorders particuarly AS

I've hear the term mentioned, but I have no idea what they are. sounds interesting.

I'm pretty sure I have Irlen's Syndrome. The symptoms have always bothered me but it wasn't until I posted on here that I found comments so much easier to read against the blue or green background that someone brought it up. I looked it up and it seems to fit. I have complained for years that it's hard to read because there's too much light in-between the letters .
Here's a link with some examples of the kind of visual distortions you can have. I see "rivers".
www.dyslexiaservices.com.au/

there are a couple of other (older, buried) threads about Irlen lenses. if you type irlen into the search box at top you will find them.

i have sort of orange tinted sunglasses (probably ten dollars at a gas station or something, i have had them for so long i don't remember where i found them) and have worn them while driving, for years & years and sometimes for reading. i don't know which distortion it is that i experience, but i definitely get a swimming / buzzy thing going on with the words when i read. sometimes i can overcome it by focusing intently on what i'm reading, sometimes not. the orange lenses i have don't make anything any darker, they just change the color contrast, which can be helpful. outside during daylight though i have to wear darker sunglasses.

i'm curious too about Irlen lenses but i'm guessing it's very expensive, between the assessment and the glasses themselves.

I definitely have this. I first heard about it when watching an asperger's documentary and I did some research. I even tried to get in contact with the specialist who worked in my city, but I never heard back. Anyway, as a self test I bought myself some transparent plastic folders in a few different colours and laid them over a page of a book to see if it made any difference. The yellow made it worse, the blue made a slight improvement, and what I found with the green was absolutely magical. The words were so clear! I can only compare it to when I first got glasses and realised how much of the world I was missing before. So yeah I bought a few more green folders and cut them to various sizes to fit different sized books and I enjoy reading a lot more than I used to. I enjoyed it before, but I used to have to set aside an entire day solely for reading because my eyes got so messed up from reading that I couldn't do much else afterwards.

Even on here I always have to "preview" my posts before I submit it so I can read it back to make sure it's coherent enough to post. And I can read the reponses on green slightly better than I can read the blue ones.

I'd like to try coloured lense glasses but they are probably really expensive and for now when I'm out, I'm finding that a hat is quite helpful in reducing some of the more offensive sensations (fluorescent lights, sunlight, etc.) plus I already have transition glasses/sunglasses.

There's a program online somewhere that you can download and it will change the colour of your computer screen to make things easier to read. I had it on my last hard drive but I forgot about it until just now. I could try to find it again if any of you are interested.

Oh, and if anyone's curious, I get a combination of the "shaky" and "halo" effects shown on that link that Aimless posted.

Edit: omg, I literally just realised that this is probably why I have formed this weird habit of highlighting paragraphs when I read things on a computer. I've often wondered why I do this constantly and I think I just figured it out.

definitely interested, if not too much trouble.

also, the plastic things you're talking about .. just colored folders or dividers from an office supply store?

Wow, I found it a lot easier than I thought I would:
http://www.musatcha.com/software/ColorFilter/

The folders are just a piece of transparent plastic folded over to regular paper size. Can find them in any office supply store.

not mac friendly .. but thank you for finding it!

Ah, that's a shame.