How can Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome (SSS) affect learners?

Learners with SSS may have:

■ a variety of reading problems including tracking difficulties;

■ a lack of motivation and actually try to avoid reading;

■ poor energy and work production;

■ a poor attention span;

■ handwriting problems – poor punctuation, an inability to write on lines, letters bunched together or spread too far apart;

■ poor gross motor skills;

■ problems with depth perception;

■ a preference to read in dim light.

Due to this list of difficulties it is easy to understand that SSS can affect not only learners’ academic success, but also their sporting, driving and musical ability. Coordination skills are frequently affected as are learners’ self-confidence and self-esteem.

There are five components of SSS and a learner may experience only one of these, some of them or all five. The five components of SSS are:

1 Light sensitivity: A learner with a light sensitivity problem may not like glare, or bright lights from fluorescent lighting, for example, or other light conditions such as haze or overcast lighting. Learners may experience, dizziness, restlessness, fatigue, headaches or even migraines and may become agitated if they are expected to read in a room where the lighting conditions are problematic for them. If a learner is sensitive to glare, then he/she may have to battle to focus clearly on a white page or on a whiteboard and may find it difficult to read across a line effectively.

2 Restricted span of recognition: A learner with this problem, also sometimes called tunnel reading, will find it very difficult to read a group of words or symbols at the same time. Learners may have difficulties copying, moving from one line to another, proofreading, skimming or speed reading.

3 Poor attention span: This is frequently the result of a learner having to concentrate very hard on each word to enable them to keep them readable. Due to the immense effort it takes for a learner with this problem to read each word, he/she will become tired very quickly and will therefore need a lot of breaks. To educators in a classroom such a learner can often appear to be lazy or lack good concentration skills. Learners with this difficulty may exhibit reading fatigue, causing eye problems. As a result of this, they may become inefficient readers, skipping words or lines and needing to use a marker or finger to keep their place while reading.

4 Inadequate background accommodation: This difficulty arises for learners when there is not enough contrast between the color, the writing or symbols are written in and the background. For learners with SSS, black letters with a white background can frequently cause a problem. This is because the white background competes for attention with the black letters, making the letters more difficult to read. Learners with this problem may have to frequently reread the same material, because the words or the background move about irregularly, making it very hard to read.

5 Poor print resolution: This is when the print, whether letters or any other type of symbols, change constantly. The letters may turn around, vibrate, jiggle, dance or fade in and out and even drop off the edges of a book. This does also seem to depend on the size of the print, spacing and the actual amount of print on each page. Learners with poor print resolution will read very disjointedly and may rub their eyes or look away before having another go at reading a word.