Autism and Vision Problems

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All my life I have been fearful of anything happening to my eyes. My experience of life has been visual. For me there was not much internal verbiage of self, mostly the experience of the environment in pictures, sounds, and sensations. The visual familiarity of objects and places gave me comfort. I often wondered how people could tell long stories, jokes, or describe books or movies they saw in detail. The idea of memorizing a poem seemed painful to me.

I could observe the world and listen to others contently with hardly any motivation to say much most of my life. It seemed I was more patient, than most, in regard to this ability.

I have problems wearing prescription glasses now and have lived in a blurred world for the last three years. I have tried to change my way of thinking from pictures to words and it has been extremely difficult. I have also been forced to communicate verbally for intellectual stimulation rather than to absorb information for stimulation; it was so much easier just to observe others, listen, and insert a few factual comments here and there.

Most of my social skills were gained by mimicking others. I had done it all my life, and didn't realize how dependent I was on it before I had vision issues. This for me, has by far been the biggest challenge of my life.

The hardest part of all was coming to the realization that my sense of self was almost entirely the visual experience of my world.

I was wondering, if anyone else has gone through this and had similiar experiences. Also, if you think it would be more difficult for Autistic people to deal with vision problems than others.

Not at all. I always think that vision is the one sense I would let go of if I had to, even if I suppose realistically that'd case many problems.

I'm a very visual person too. I've even noticed that when I'm having a stressful conversation I focus on the objects in the room and study them intently, because they give me comfort.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean, though, when you say you have problems with your prescription glasses. Are they uncomfortable to wear? Do they affect how you see so that you can't see as well as you used to without them?

I went through a period where my eyes were making absolutely no tears. No regular eye drops helped and it took about 8 months in dark rooms before the prescription restasis drops kicked in, and I started making tears again; up to this point I couldn't tolerate light with or without my prescription lenses.

I have a nerve problem in the right side of my face that produces chronic pain that medication doesn't help. Corrective lenses intensify the pain. Fortunately I am nearsighted enough where I can see a Computer at close range, although the pain is chronic.

I can still use prescription sunglasses to drive, but the pain becomes severe If I drive very far. I've been to every related specialist; I have always had extreme tactile sensitivity, so I may be feeling things that others might not experience with a similiar condition.

I'm sorry that you're having to go through that. My vision is good, so I can't say that I know at all what you're going through. But I do agree that I would find it very difficult if I lost a significant part of my vision, because I too experience the world primarily visually. I'm not sure whether this is related to AS though.

I think you'd have to make a distinction between sensory perception effects, and the mechanical problems such as astigmatism and near-sightedness, etc.

In my case, I am near-sighted, and recently got prescription glasses. So technically I now have 20/20 vision. I notice that even with supposedly normal vision, I still have a very tough time recognizing people, noticing uninteresting things, and judging velocities. Now, however, I can clearly not notice these things.

This may be completely bizarre, and I don't have Asperger's (I think my husband does) but I've been treated by chiropractic care lately for a lot of weird symptoms. I think excessive blinking and and dry eyes might have been caused by my neck being out. I also believe that cranial sublaxations (your skull bones being out of place) are real, because I've felt some of the muscles around the skull, and had areas of my brain affected when my top vertebrae was out. I think it's all inter-related. Anyway, I'm just wondering about your nerve pain being related to a cranial sublaxation. I've been seeing a chiropractor who's using the Blair Technique and it's going quite well. See someone who uses the Blair technique and treats cranial sublaxations. It may be "off the wall" and may not work for you, but it can't hurt to check it out.

I'm a visual person too but I like tactile stimulation. My eyes are becoming weaker and sore and I'm not sure if my condition will get worse. I think it had something to do with a severe seizure I had once which left me with a droopy eye and now I barely blink.

I was reading a book about how the brain can reorganize itself to compensate for lost functions and had the sudden thought: can blind people still imagine things? I mean if they were not born blind. I think I'll be ok if I still have my imagination.

Yes, well said! But in my own case, my ever-worsening vision has become less correctable, and that leaves me suffering what Aghogday has mentioned ...


Whew, exactly. I got my first pair of glasses at an early age, and for years I have known it was time for a new prescription whenever the "experience of my world" became blurred or cloudy ... and now it is like I am still wide awake on the inside but always looking out into foggy surroundings.

Last edited by leejosepho on 25 Mar 2011, 6:04 am, edited 1 time in total.

Yes a lot of them apparently can. I guess it's very likely as long as you weren't blind from birth. Probably depends on how good the visual memory is, which in turn would depend on how interested the subject was in visual things.

Aghogday, I'll take this opportunity to state that you have an extremely cute baby picture!

I'm actually going to "vision therapy" to correct focusing problems prescription glasses can't correct. Apparently it's common for autistic people to have trouble "tracking" objects.

I'm not sure if this is related but I also read that people on the autism spectrum also tend to look "bigger-eyed" cause their pupils are dilated cause they're more alert/anxious generally. Maybe a problem with shifting appropriately from dilated pupils to non-dilated according to the distance of subject/lighting?

I have really bad vision. I'm extremely nearsighted, and one eye has significant astigmatism. I have floaters. I also have chronic dry eye. All of that that is normal stuff, not special sensitivities. I don't have an particular optical sensitivities.

To tell long stories, jokes, describe books, movies in detail requires abilities that I lack of, too. Maybe this is what they call "weak narrative language". I believe that being unable to tell jokes (or maybe just a few) does not necessarily imply that one hasn't got a good sense of humor. Anyway, I don't see the connection with visuals.


Interesting, that I'm also more a listening type than a talkative type. I listened people telling me lengthy monologues on subjects I showed interest in. I could never build up such monologues even when I was telling about my favorite subjects.


Well, I guess one must realize first that one is using merely visual experiences. In my case, I don't think so. My experiences of the word always were visual, auditive, and trough sense of smell. However, I see your point that autistic people depend more on visual experiences, since they haven't got social relations on pair with NTs.

That is interesting. I have a congenitally fused vertabrae in my neck and have developed moderate to severe arthritis in other vertabrae along with some narrowing of the foramen canals. I had severe neck pain for a couple of years. I went to a chiropractor and massage therapist and got little relief. Last year I got an epideural in my neck. It seems to have broken the pain cycle and apparently most of my pain was caused by the spasms rather than the actual underlying structural problems.

Unfortunately it didn't help the pain around the eye. I do have a severely deviated septum and some related issues there that might cause the nerve pain. But, I am not a canidate for the surgery, because I am not able to tolerate just breathing out of my mouth while my nose is packed for seven days after the surgery. The doctors have given me no guarantee that I will get relief from the pain with the surgery. It would be nice, though to be able to breathe out of my right nostril.

Another interesting point on dry eyes is, since I have been taking louvaza for high triglycerides I have had very little problem with dry eyes; it seems to of helped to the same degree that the restasis has. It is after all concentrated omega three from fish oil, and I have heard people suggest fish oil for dry eyes before. For me regular fish oil pills didn't help. Could be just a coincidence though.

Hard to believe now that I didn't have a need to visit a doctor from the time I was 22 to 46. I find it much harder to deal with the AS with medical problems. Before then, I felt like I was keeping it all together. My coping mechanisms, though, were complex. I didn't realize how complex they were until I couldn't exercise them anymore.

At the same time I was spending time in dark rooms, I was also having extreme problems tolerating noise, along with horrible insomnia. All I had to entertain myself was with my imagination. Without it I would have lost my mind. At some point I literally ran out of things to think about; fortunately my eyes got a little better, noise toleration got a little better, and I could at least sit in a room with a TV and listen to it to get some new information to think about.

My mind has reorganized itself quite a bit, now; I find the change a little unnerving and feel lost at times, but I am still hanging in there.

My wife has epilepsy; fortunately she has the partial complex seizures. She had one grandmal seizure during pregnancy labor and it was very scary. She was diagnosed shortly after that; thank goodness she hasn't had any more big seizures.

I feel for you not being able to blink. The pain I experienced with completely dry eyes was the worst pain I have experienced in my life. I'm sure you must experience some of this pain with not being able to blink. Hopefully, your ability to blink will get better.

I craved light most of my light and was generally add hyposensitive needing stimulus to focus. I got caught in a cycle of hypervigilence from extreme stress; I think the hyper alterness is what started my sensitivity to sound and light.

At first it was nice not to have to work so hard to get stimulus to concentrate, but I think the hypervigilence led to many of my physical problems. I wonder if the general state of anxiety that some people experience with Autism causes similiar issues in others.

Do you see an ophthamologist for the tracking issue? I have explained my issues to my opthamologist but she hasn't mentioned the tracking issue. She knows I have autism.

And thanks for the compliment on the picture. The picture reminds me of the spirit I had somewhere at about the age of three, with my first memories of the world, before I could speak. I think I understood the world better then than I do now. I had the feeling that I had been here forever; now I realize looking forward is forever.

Last edited by aghogday on 25 Mar 2011, 12:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.