Autism, reading and telling the time

Why does there appear to be a visual issue in autism? Many autistic people have difficulty reading a clock face but can read a digital clock. On a clock face it is possible to 'see' the time to come and the time gone by.  Not true on a digital clock you only see 'now'. giving no sense of passing time.  Attention can get fixed on a part of the visual scene making saccading around it difficult. You need to do a visual search with a clock face. To understand the emotions on a human face your eyes need to do a visual search of the human face.
Fluent reading needs controlled attention shifting as you read. Many people identified as autistic years ago turned out to be dyslexic. Many people identified as dyslexic ..........
Is there a connection ?

Lots of Children in Need

Blog Children in need

About 10 million adults in the UK are functionally Illiterate. They are unable to read official forms properly, newspapers, even medicine bottles.

Today, at school there will be  1 in 5 children who when they are adult still not be able to read properly.

That is over 1,200,000 of our children in school today

Why is this still true?

My work has been to study this for the last 28 years.   For the last 14 years, using computers to work out what is controlling how well young people and adults read. Before the computer you had to read what you were given. The clever people could cope with small fonts. The people in the lower sets, the less successful often needed big print but were still slow readers.

Using a computer to you can choose

·         your font size.

·         how bright the background is.

·         the colour of the background.

It is possible to calculate exactly what will allow people to get their maximum reading performance. I and my colleagues are working with people of all ages at Universities, colleges but rarely in schools. There are ways of precisely fitting a computer screen to your eyes. When you do you will read more efficiently, faster, more fluently.

Having to use one size of font in examinations, and in printed material disables millions of people in this country and elsewhere.

If in the Olympics everyone had to run in size 8 shoes, different people would win. It would be a stupid rule., The same for reading, one size does NOT fit all..

From our data (over 12,000 people) we think around 4000000 (4 million) of the children in school today would read and write more easily on grey paper! 

Now that is an easy one. It would cost nothing!

 It can be even better but that might cost a little bit, but nothing compared to how much our children and adults lose out. Also we spend millions and millions of pounds on probably unnecessary reading support in schools at the moment. An example of further improvement is below. 

The same text is printed on a cyan background,and a magenta background ,

To find out more read the rest of the Blog. Click at the top and Join it and take part. If you found one of the  colours useful/easier  or your children ask them to have a go. Listen to them. This can be so easily dealt with on a computer. 

The cost to this country is minimal virtually free. The cost to your child of not doing it could be many thousands of pounds in lost opportunities. Please take part in making things better for millions and probably yourself.

As a final point around 25%  of our school children should be wearing spectacles. In a study I have done recently it is more like 11% 1 That means around  14% ( over 1,000,000) are in school today unable to properly see books, exam papers or board properly using an old technology. We need our schools to be glasses friendly.

(please retweet the tweet)

Short sight, fine motor skills and Phonological development Yesterday I worked with a student who was extremely short sighted. She had glasses on which were very strong. The optician had told her that she needed to wear them all the time. When I checked her ‘near point’, how close she could hold a book with her glasses on, this was about 20 centimetres, however anything over 40 cms away became very blurry, out of focus. Without her glasses the near point was less than 10 cms. She would never have been able to focus on writing for long. If she could at all, she would most likely have found it very painful, especially between her eyes (Aesthenopia). If she tried to write, placing her hand between eyes and page would have definitely put it out of focus. Essentially without glasses, before the age of 10 years, her vision had been so poor that she would not have been able to see let alone decode or blend sounds. From then on she was able to see what was on a page, see her own handwriting. As such she should, one would expect, have been able to develop fine motor skills in her writing, with good hand-eye coordination. But there was another twist. A short series of tests suggests that she cannot actually see the words clearly, with her glasses until the font size is 48; not yet considering colour background, This Blog has been published in Font 14. I shall copy a block at the end into font 48 for your easy comparison, At font 12 reading was extremely slow, and decoding was so poor you might mistake it for dyslexia. At font 48 it went up to 154 wpm! This is not rocket science! It might seem strange but it is a simple concept. One student at a university needed a font 35, no colour, no glasses needed. A big computer screen though! Yesterday’s student, with her glasses, could still not see a blackboard to read. She has always had to copy other people and get into trouble for doing it. Becoming marginalised. To see her writing, it needed to be large. Not fitting on the lined paper. Small writing would be hard for her to see and give rise to poor feedback from eyes to the muscles controlling hand movement. More marginalisation. The system is stacked against people with big or scruffy looking writing. It is associated with low intelligence in the world of education. Font 48 To see her writing, it needed to be large. Not fitting on the lined paper. Small writing would be hard for her to see and give rise to poor feedback from eyes to the muscles controlling hand movement. More marginalisation. The system is stacked against people with big or scruffy looking writing. It is associated with low intelligence in the world of education.

Short sight, fine motor skills and Phonological development

Yesterday I worked with a student who was extremely short sighted.  She had glasses on which were very strong. 

The optician had told her that she needed to wear them all the time.

When I checked her ‘near point’, how close she could hold a book with her glasses on, this was about 20 centimetres, however anything over 40 cms away became very blurry, out of focus.  Without her glasses the near point was less than 10 cms. She would never have been able to focus on writing for long. If she could at all, she would most likely have found it very painful, especially between her eyes (Aesthenopia).

If she tried to write, placing her hand between eyes and page would have definitely put it out of focus.

Essentially without glasses, before the age of 10 years, her vision had been so poor that she would not have been able to see let alone decode or blend sounds.

From then on she was able to see what was on a page, see her own handwriting.

As such she should, one would expect, have been able to develop fine motor skills in her writing, with good hand-eye coordination. But there was another twist.

A short series of tests suggests that she cannot actually see the words clearly, with her glasses until the font size is 48; not yet considering colour background,

This Blog has been published in Font 14. I shall copy a block at the end into font 48 for your easy comparison,

At font 12 reading was extremely slow, and decoding was so poor you might mistake it for dyslexia. At font 48 it went up to 154 wpm!

This is not rocket science! It might seem strange but it is a simple concept.  One student at a university needed a font 35, no colour, no glasses needed. A big computer screen though!

Yesterday’s student, with her glasses, could still not see a blackboard to read.  She has always had to copy other people and get into trouble for doing it. Becoming marginalised.

To see her writing, it needed to be large. Not fitting on the lined paper. Small writing would be hard for her to see and give rise to poor feedback from eyes to the muscles controlling hand movement.

More marginalisation. The system is stacked against people with big or scruffy looking writing. It is associated with low intelligence in the world of education.

Font 48

To see her writing, it needed to be large. Not fitting on the lined paper. Small writing would be hard for her to see and give rise to poor feedback from eyes to the muscles controlling hand movement.

More marginalisation. The system is stacked against people with big or scruffy looking writing. It is associated with low intelligence in the world of education.

A possible mechanism for the effect of colour on reading performance

Introduction to a likely mechanism for the colour background settings effect on reading from a computer or the effect of colour on reading performance.

(This is a simplified version and ought to lead to further questions)

Last night I was trying to assist a student on Skype and realised that an attempt at explaining the mechanism might be useful.

When we read the image is focussed on the retina with the centre of attention (the first few letters of the word) centred on the middle of the fovea (the most ‘accurate’ part of the retina)

1. The fovea only responds to red and green light. 
2. How well the light from the image of this first group of letters, is focussed on this central patch of cells, will affect how many milliseconds it takes to ‘compute the image’ which will allow us to identify the letters /word.
3. The eyes are held sort of steady (not totally) for around a third of a second.
4. While it is being held steady, pigment molecules are capturing bits of light (photons) in each of the cone cells.
5. The ‘red’ sensitive cone cells are collecting lower frequency (longer wavelength/lower energy) photons than the ‘green’ sensitive cone cells.
6. Every time a pigment molecule catches a photon it releases an electron.
7. These electrons are what really give rise to our vision, our reading. These bits of data contribute to the computing the image and ultimately reading.

When a pigment molecule has released an electron, it twists out of shape and is no longer able to catch another photon.

 It can only do that again if it leaves the cone cell, travels into another cell, which actually surrounds the bit of the cone cell where the active pigment is held. In this second cell it has the electron replaced and twists back into the shape which can catch another electron.

This ‘recharged’ pigment molecule then has to travel back to the cone cell it came from and once again catch a photon and allow vision to ‘continue’.

 If the recharging/ retwisting process cannot keep up with the photon catching, then the cone cells will become less good at catching light and will reduce their ability to work. Images will become fuzzier, less clear or take longer to compute. Reading would be slower or not possible and the system will fail.

In normal visual activity,( reading is not normal in terms of evolution!) the eyes wander around the visual scene, in a series of saccades( fast movements)  and fixations ( nearly steady picture taking) allowing changing ratios of red and green light to hit the cones allowing them to keep up, maintain sufficient concentration of working pigment molecules.

In reading on a white background the eyes are constantly bombarded with large amounts of equally intensive ‘red’ and ‘green’ photons.

If the green catching cells or the red catching cells cannot keep up a high enough concentration of working pigment then the system is compromised and will need rest periods to catch up.

In addition to computing the image the data from the cone cells is the basis of the control of the muscles, moving and holding the eyes on target, keeping the eyes working together and landing at the right place for the next ‘picture’. If this system is compromised then the muscles will be instructed incorrectly, land the eyes pointing at the wrong, or conflicting parts of the text. Giving rise to incorrect word identification and changing the perception of word sequences and compromise spelling /word automaticity development

People vary dramatically in the numbers ratio of the red and green cone cells in their foveas and also vary in the concentration of working pigment molecules in each cell.

Changing the ratio of red: green pixel brightness on the computer screen background will directly impact on the efficiency of this system.

It is not possible to work out the correct ‘colour’ using paper. Although you can find out if someone definitely is affected. It is very likely that you will get a false negative.

I will deal with blue cones separately.

Checking to see if someone has a visual problem that is affecting their reading/writing

Checking to see if someone has a visual problem that is affecting their reading/writing

( note I am not an optician, This is a biologists view of the issue)

If you are trying to help yourself or someone else to understand if they have an unresolved but resolvable visual problem which can make your dyslexia seem worse, or perhaps be the root cause

Then try the following.

 Does the person need glasses?

1.     Hold a pen in front of one eye and close the other. Start with the pen about 10 cm in front of the open eye.

a.     Move the pen slowly back and forth

b.     If it is out of focus and

                                                             i.      Gets clearer then less clear as you move it to arms length, then… You have a short sight problem.

                                                           ii.      If it gets clearer then stays clear, then…ok.

                                                        iii.      If it stays out of focus even when your arm is outstretched, then…. the eye is probably longsighted.

2.     Try the other eye. Same questions.

3.     If the two eyes are different,  for example .one long sighted and one short sighted then you will probably  suppress one ( and get easily distracted) when reading.

This could result in an eye turning sideways and getting a pain around one eye, after a period of reading.

4.     The other possibility is an astigmatism in one or both eyes. Quite common but often not corrected if in one eye only.

An astigmatism is slightly more difficult but not really hard to identify.

a.     Draw a large capital L on a page. About 5 cm tall and wide.

b.     Hold it in front of one eye (the other eye closed) at the closest point at which the eye was focussed.

c.      If the vertical or the horizontal is fuzzy and the other is sharp then you have an eye ball with an uncorrected astigmatism.

d.     Swap eyes and test the other.

If uncorrected with glasses then an astigmatism will slow down data collection from that eye. If one eye is worse then the eye will be suppressed and may turn to one side, cause eye aches and reduce reading stamina.

How will this affect dyslexia in that poor visual data collection will make extra demands on already limited working memory and make the situation unnecessarily / avoidably worse.

Also if the reading is slower you have to hold the ideas/images in memory for longer time periods which will stress working memory which can be considered as having a time limit as well as a capacity limit. So the beginning of the sentence has ‘disappeared before you get to the end of it.

5.     If both eyes very short-sighted thus can be linked with the eyes finding it hard to ‘turn in’ to prevent a sense of double-vision.

This will lead to the book being needed to be gradually moved away from the face until it gets out of focus. Often short-sighted people are very fast readers but only in short time bursts with lots of rests/gaps needed.

6.     If an eye is turning out for some reason, the head is often turned sideways, or it is accompanied by head -shaking/fidgeting/..

Even if you have glasses, you may be suspicious of whether they are correct. Following the above checks with your glasses on can help you in deciding what to do next.

If you have problems then go back to the opticians?

Control of colour and font on my blog!

Just realised I can control colour and font size on my blog!   But I could ask people to use google chrome it is easier to personalise it

My work is based on assisting around 12000 undergraduates and FE  students who have mainly, but not all, been labelled as Dyslexic.   Very large numbers of these have difficulties in writing, some with  very extreme difficulties to the point that writing is almost painful  and disorientating.

	My work is based on assisting around 12000 undergraduates and FE students who have mainly, but not all, been labelled as Dyslexic.  Very large numbers of these have difficulties in writing, some with very extreme difficulties to the point that writing is almost painful and disorientating.

What size of Font?

Using the data collected by my colleagues and myself it has become clear that the modal font size  of text needs to be around 14-16 point if it is not going to limit most adults reading performance. This appears to be true even when the person has the best possible glasses they can get.  It appears not to be about 'focussing' in a physics  way , but  is likely a bit like making sure your shoes fit your feet . The wrong size and walking becomes slower or limited in how far you will walk. . May I suggest that many people who read fluently and succeed academically may actually those whose eyes/retinas are able to process the images from small text!  This data has been collected objectively  from a large sample.
People asre often embarrassed to use a bigger font, because the way this country links a large font to a poor reader which is then stupidly associated with low intelligence.