Does anyone wear colored lenses?

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I'm curious if anyone with AS is wearing colored lenses for Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome.
If you do, are there screeners other than Irlen?

TIA!

Lynn

Do you mean contacts or glasses ?

Alex - I believe that both can be used.

Check out this link/research = http://www.autism.org/interview/irlen.html

Hey i used colored contact lences for the sun Nike makes them there called nike max sport i think. I have aspergers and i have to wear them because of the light problem too.

Regarding the Irlen Institute company you refer to, the colored lenses were, first, designed for those with dyslexia to assist with reading text on a book and text on a chalk board in school. Initially there were only colored overlays - plastic layers of color to be placed over the text books, and the colored lenses were devised so any writing could be read where it wasn't possible to put a colored overlay.

Then, Donna Williams, in seeking a treatment for her dyslexia, said she noticed that Helen Irlen's lenses helped her with her "fragmented perception" and "light sensitivity", and Donna boasted about this and promoted Irlen for some time. Later, as now seen on her website donnawilliams.net, Donna rejects Irlen, makes a point to say that she doesn't use their lenses any more, and instead uses another companies (BPI) in Florida. And, she switches from one color to another at random times and random days.

Helen Irlen pounced on Williams first testimony, and despite the updates of Donna over the last 10 years or so, including direct requests for Helen to remove all mention of Donna from her website, Irlen has persisted in advertising her lenses as having helped Donna immensely, and has used outdated written testimonies of Donna to advertise the lenses.

Also, Irlen conjured this condition Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome (SSS) (also called Irlen Syndrome), and it is not recognized in medicine or science. Though still, many believe it is so, and many with and without autism spectrum disorder have accepted it rather uncritically, especially those people who enjoy considering themselves as having this and that diagnosis - they like the long and growing list of their diagnoses.

Irlen is a typical crafty advertising professional, and has targeted the autism community, which is reprehensible.

Irlen goes so far to provide her own diagnostic rating scale, to be given to those with autism spectrum to see if they have SSS. And she charges for this assessment.

She also has you first go to a "screener" for about $80+ dollars I believe, for initial testing to further determine if you can benefit from her lenses. Then the later appointment with a "diagnostician" costs up to $300.

She portrays her Irlen Lenses as being specially colored lenses, when in fact they are, simply, the standard primary colors, and some secondary colors, and a standard ultra-violet lens. She and her staff will often tell her clients that they are proprietary lenses protected by trademark, but I've had each tested by spectrum analysis, and they are, simply, the primary colors and some secondary colors. I believe she would admit to this if you contacted her office directly.

She boasts about her "patented Irlen Method" and leads people to believe that the whole of her business is patented (lenses, diagnosis, methods, rating scales, etc). However, the Irlen Method is, simply, the method of lens selection: the lighter intensities of the colors are tried first, and of those that seem helpful, others are then added in an order of lighter to darker, and narrowed down in this way.

Most importantly, science and medicine do not recognize her lenses, diagnosis, rating scale, etc.

Note on her website the ever growing list of indications she believes her lenses have:
Reading Problems, Dyslexia and Learning Difficulties:
Gifted and Average Students with Good Reading Skills:
Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD/HD):
Headaches, Migraines and Other Physical Symptoms:
Light Sensitivity
Autism and Asperger Syndrome:
Traumatic Brain Injuries, Head Injuries, Concussions and Whiplash:
* Low Vision/Visually Impaired
* Light-Induced Epilepsy
* Depression
* Anxiety
* Strokes
* Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
* Auto Immune Diseases
* Multiple Sclerosis
* Cerebral Palsy
* Fibromyalgia
* Viral Illnesses
* Tourette Syndrome
* Lyme Disease
* Reading. Problems reading because of a change in clarity or stability of the print.
* Sustained Attention and Concentration. Problems with ease and comfort reading and doing other visual activities
* Light Sensitivity. Individuals become light sensitive. This makes going outside, being in bright lighting or fluorescent lighting, and driving at night uncomfortable or stressful.
* Physical Symptoms. Experience headaches, nausea, dizziness, anxiety, irritability, or stomachaches. The severity of these physical symptoms is often increased by sunlight, bright lighting, reading, and other visually-intensive activities.
* Depth Perception. Problems with activities that require the ability to judge depth or spatial relationships.
* Fatigue. General sense of being tired and fatigued.
* Neurological Problems. Light-induced seizures, tremors, or other similar problems.

I find this to clearly indicate that she is market oriented and profit oriented.

I myself met with 3 different Irlen diagnosticians separately, and each came up with an entirely different color combination, yet, Helen Irlen claims that the diagnosticians find exactly the right color or color combination for each person, that is, finds the right light wavelengths to filter out. In the end, after using the lenses for several days at home, for the purpose of fully determining if they were helpful to any degree, I found than none of the three color combinations was helpful, after spending about $800 total, including the $75 or so cost for getting plastic lenses dyed in her factory in California.