![]() A more recent study ( Kriss and Evans, 2005) suggests that visual stress affects about the 37.5% of children with dyslexia and about the 25% of non-dyslexic children. According to Irlen (1997), this condition would interest approximately the 12–14% of the population and about the 46% of individuals with a diagnosis of dyslexia (and/or alternative learning difficulties). Symptoms of visual stress are visual fatigue, perceived excessive luminosity, and several kinds of perceptual distortion such as blurring, fading, or flickering of the visual stimulus. With “visual stress” Wilkins refers to the condition caused by the features of the visual stimulus, and that therefore is of sensorial origin, and not to the visual stress generated by movements of the eyes, by visual accommodation or by binocular convergence. The term “visual stress” refers to the inability to see comfortably and without distortion ( Wilkins et al., 1984). To forecast the conclusions, the conception of visual stress as an independent reading deficit is controversial, whereas the research on the colored overlays is yet inconclusive since evidence both in favor of and contrary to their efficacy as a remedy has been provided. In this article, we provide a brief, concise review of the literature on colored overlays as a remedy for visual stress in reading. One of the reasons that brought the role of visual and perceptual skills in reading to attention was the observation that some dyslexic individuals are affected by a perceptual dysfunction, called Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome and also known as Meares-Irlen Syndrome and Visual Stress (MISViS Evans, 1997). Although the theoretical debate on the causes of reading difficulties and dyslexia has given a primary role to the “phonological hypothesis” – since the efficiency of the processes of phonological processing is among the best predictors of reading skill acquisition ( Wagner and Torgesen, 1987 Snowling et al., 2000) – the role of visual and perceptual skills has gained attention (e.g., Watson et al., 2003). The role of colors in reading has a few decades of history, dating back to 1958, when Jansky (1958) reported the case of a student with a reading deficit who was unable to recognize words printed on a white paper but was able to recognize words printed on a yellow paper. ![]() Here we provide a concise, critical review of the literature. Furthermore, the very nature of the Meares-Irlen syndrome has been questioned. Also, according to some researchers, the results supporting the efficacy of colored overlays as a tool for helping readers are at least controversial. Despite the wide use of colored overlays, how they exert their effects has not been made clear yet. ![]() Thus, colored overlays have been largely employed as a remedy for some aspects of the difficulties in reading experienced by dyslexic individuals, as fluency and speed. This condition would interest the 12–14% of the general population and up to the 46% of the dyslexic population. These effects would be particularly evident for those individuals affected by the so called Meares-Irlen syndrome, i.e., who experience eyestrain and/or visual distortions – e.g., color, shape, or movement illusions – while reading. It has been argued that colored overlays applied above written texts positively influence both reading fluency and reading speed. In this article, we are concerned with the role of colors in reading written texts.
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