A scientific study has confirmed that colored contact lenses
help children and adults with dyslexia to read better, using a
pioneering treatment discovered in Britain.
But British Dyslexics, a charity that works with people who have
reading difficulties, said Wednesday that such lenses might be an
expensive solution, and also cause long-term brain changes. They
suggested use of cheaper plastic overlays.
Colored plastic lenses were originally prescribed to deal with
poor color vision. Patients told David Harris, then principal
research optician at the Corneal Laser Centre at Clatterbridge
Hospital, Cheshire, the lenses also improved their reading.
Harris tested 47 dyslexic children and adults, with two sets of
lenses, one with colors to help the patients read, and a set of
lightly tinted ``placebos.'' On average, the participants could
read six words a minute faster with the placebo lenses than
without, but 12 words a minute faster with the fully colored ones,
an improvement of 15 per cent.
The work, published in the Journal of the American Optometric
Association, is reported in New Scientist magazine.
Roy Fielding, chairman of British Dyslexics, said colored
contact lenses cost about 200 pounds (more than $300), and colored
plastic overlays for items being read, cost less than a dollar.
``The effect of the overlays seems to get less and less, until
children don't need them,'' said Fielding. ``But with lenses you're
wearing them all the time. Sometimes the color isn't subtle, and
for an adult it can be like wearing a sign saying, `I am
dyslexic'.''
John Stein of Oxford University suggests dyslexia is caused by
faults in the nerve cells between the eye's retina and the brain's
visual cortex.
These cells respond best to orange-yellow light, so colored
lenses might help to generate more of such colors in the visual
field.
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(Distributed by New York Times Special Features)
