Yep, his teacher recommended I take him to a behavioural optomotrist. He is due to have his eyes checked anyway so will go where she suggested. Cairns also has a centre (Bill Spooner) who tests for Irlen Syndrome so we will takeit a step at a time because really everything I have read about it so far, kinda sound like ti could be but not really. Plus being colour blind not sure how the tint will help?
My daughter's teacher recommended she be assessed through an Irlen Clinic. I was sceptical about how the lenses would work but decided to give it a try. She was diagnosed as needing yellow tinted lenses. She was 8 years old at the time and my husband tried her glasses on once we received them and he was amazed at how clearly he could read the text. It turns out that he has been dyslexic all his life and didn't know that that was the cause of his literacy problems throughout his schooling.
Give the lenses a try, they really helped my daughter. She still found primary school a real struggle but it all started to click and become easier in high school. She still takes a lot longer than others to read text but is now in her first year at University.
See reading isn't so much his issue, it the understanding what he is reading & comprehension. When he was assessed by a child psychologist she said that his comprehension when he reads to himself was "red flag" below average yet when it was read to him, it was above average..
If he's working so hard to decipher what's on the page, it's possible that he just isn't taking it in to understand it and retain it and process it. Having the assessment won't hurt - and it can certainly help. I've taught a number of kids who have needed coloured lenses and/or coloured paper. It does make a difference, and the earlier the better.
I will look further into it. Just trying to figure it out in my head LOL. But I think I need to stop doing that & just prepare as much info as possible for the pead appointment in 3 weeks.
My 7yo son had his birthday last week, in Grade 1 in Australia NSW this year. Diagnosed with dyslexia last week. Was tested yesterday for Irlen after my research on the internet (check out Irlen Sydney in google), and no, his psychologist who diagnosed the dyslexia didn't even mention it! I walked in with significant skepticism, but deep down desperate fragile hope.
My first pleasant surprise was they asked all the right kind of background questions on the review sheet prior to the interview. Promising. Then followed 2 hours of thorough testing with a highly competent diagnostician (a teacher of 17 years, with two Irlen diagnosed kids - she's been through it all). Not only did she make my son feel welcome and comfortable and talk directly with him, she asked questions the right way so that my son came out with all sorts of descriptions - and not once did she give him clues as to what she thought he might be seeing, so he had no chance of using descriptors learned in the session.
Gosh. The stuff he sees! Horizontal lines are wavy. Vertical lines are moving and varying zig-zags. Words move all the time. a's o's and e's all have black dots in their centres. Words are always blurry as there's a second set of words right next to them. Letters change heights. Some words appear with neon white light around them. I have two heads (LOL). As the session moved on past the testing stage, she initially gave him overlays to try. Once he worked his way thru them and found the ones that were easier on his eyes/did good things for them, she started giving him lenses to try and compare and comment on (3 sets at a time). She went through about 40 sets, making sure that the ones that worked the best were really 'for sure'. The revelation when all of a sudden the words stopped moving! For the first time in his life, he can see words that don't move! He looked out the window and said, hey mum, the plane's just going along in the sky (along its trajectory) - it doesn't go round and round and round like it used to (wobbling along its trajectory). He thought all he saw was 'normal' until yesterday.
Needless to say, we've walked out with glasses ordered, a very excited boy, have temporary overlays to use in class, and have discovered that Reflex Blue is his easiest colour to read from for school photocopying. We're now going through the process of educating teachers, and all the kids at school (small school) about Irlen.
You can ring the Irlen centre - they'll tell you straight away whether or not colour blindness will affect the use of their lenses. (My son has red/green colour blindness.) The lenses help correct a specific colour(s) light spectrum deficiency in the magnocellular cells in the nerves that send the messages from the eye to the brain - it doesn't correct any eye/optical issues - they still need to be worked on by an optometrist. Hope this helps.
For my son, every dollar spent there was worthwhile. How incredibly life-changing. All up, including two educational books (for others) and cost of glasses, we walked out for $680. Oh, and they offered to come to our school for free to educate teachers, even after I offered to pay.
BellyBelly Member
Irlen tinted lenses
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