Ellenpoly, I'll try to find the books by Donna Williams. They sound interesting.

Liz,

I have adjusted the background colour on my computer to the same tint as my lenses - which is a light maroon tint. It helps a lot. Part of the Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome evaluation, after confirming that that is the problem, is identifying the best colour for the individual.   Some people work better with blue, some with other colours so ivory tinted paper isn't the only option but it would definitely help. I've always liked secondhand books, and I think one of the reasons is that often the paper has gone a brownish tint and they are easy to read.

At the SSS evaluation as soon as I looked through the light maroon tint at the sample reading text I went "Ohhhh!!!" so the doc knew that that was the most likely choice for me. He tried out the other tints but I came back to the one that had made me react so pleasantly. It was like "At last! Is this what I have been waiting for? Is this how it is for other people all the time?" It was like coming out of a long, weary, dark tunnel into daylight.

The way I found out about the lenses was when one of my students told me that she needed tinted paper for her exams and as we were talking she mentioned that she also had dyslexia. When I said that I do too she handed me her blue tinted glasses and said, "Try these".

I put them on and tried to read the paper in my hand and said "Ohhhh!!!" I had no idea what they did or why they were supposed to work. I didn't want to take them off. I definitely didn't want to hand them back to her. They kind of stuck to my fingers and I had to force myself to give them back. She told me about the doctor at the uni and I made an appointment as soon as possible after that. Never looked back.

By the way, Liz, I also have the problem with remembering numbers. similar problem with remembering words but numbers go in one ear and out the other, unless I make a logical pattern of them to remember them, e.g. 1248 = 1, 1x2=2, 2x2=4, 4x2=8.   Luckily my pin no. for my bank account forms a pattern on the keypad too so I just have to remember the starting point and the rest is easy.    There are some words I always get the wrong way around. Suspicious and superstitious, Danny and Andy, etc.

One of my uni lecturers (#$%&* cow!) totally humiliated me in front of my whole class when I had to do a presentation for my final assessment for an MBA subject. She said I got the prize for using my hands the most while talking but if I don't use my hands I can't get at the right words sometimes. If I can describe the concept in the air in front of me I can track my brain through its pathways to find the right word. It's like there is a filing room with lots of filing cabinets in the left side of my brain and I have to go from the visual/conceptual right brain through into that room and then find the right filing cabinet and the right drawer to pull out the right "label" for what I am thinking.

When you think about it the words assigned to objects and concepts are all arbitrarily assigned. The word "left" and the word "right" were just agreed upon yonks ago to mean the concept of left and right. For me, I have to go from visualising the concept to finding that agreed upon label.

Helen