What do you know about Irlen Syndrome?

I was talking with Evans teacher this morning. About our concerns for his learning. That we feel there is a learning difficulty going on. She agrees.
There is a long history of trying to figure out what is going on with this kid but I am yet to get answers & we have just done the best we can.

Anyway she mentioned this Irlen Syndrome (which I had recently read a little about) & that its to do with colours. When I said Evan is colour Blind she thought it was really interesting & worth looking further into.

I can't really find much on the net though, well I can but it doesn't quite suit Evan. But most of what I have read is about the syndrome in Adults not kids.

So have you experienced this one, know anything more that I can read etc?

Thanks

I haven't personally, but I do know of people with children who have it. A local school close to me even ran an information night about it because they have quite a few children with it that go there. The people I know said that their son had to have all of his work printed on buff coloured paper, as he just couldn't see what was printed on a white sheet. But my knowledge is pretty limited. I will see what I can find out for you though. ETA - I forgot to say that he had to wear coloured glasses as well.

I came across this site too that has a lot of info about it http://irlen.com/index.php?s=what not sure if you would have come across that one already though.

Thanks.

Evan Can read well enough but he doesn't comprehend what we reads. Doesn't like to read, really hates to write. can't follow patterns (numeracy) stuff like that. I actually mentioned Dyslexia to his teacher which when she said the Irlen syndrome. It is just a lot of guess work at the moment & we do have appointments later this month with a pead & the school is organising what assessments they can do also. But yeah just want to read up on things so we have some idea.

Hi,

I got tested for Irlin as a cause for migraines. It involved looking at lots of patterns and pages of words and numbers, and trying out the different tints for the lenses to see what colours made a difference (putting a tinted sheet over the paper and working out what colours make the images sharper)
It is not widely accepted or still considered experimental - one doctor I spoke with thought it was hogwash. And interestingly, the glasses or assessment were not covered by my health insurance. But I have a friend whose son (a teen) has the glasses and it has made a world of difference to him.
In the end I didn't get glasses, but adjusted the colour and brightness settings on my computer screen, as that seemed to be the culprit for me.

At DD1's school the teacher's son had it and she suggested that M get tested by a behavioural optomotrist. I found one in our area, who bulk bills.... I still haven't done it, but I spoke with M's OT about it who suggested that a lot of children with sensory issues often come up with it if they do have visual processing issues.

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?

I went to a Behavioural Optometrist for myself, and was told I could pay extra to find out some "eye exercises".

At the next check up I went to an ordinary Optometrist, who explained I had a mild astigmatism, and needed glasses!

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.

BW

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.

Wow. Evan is (as far as I know) also red/green colour blind.
All very interesting. He has an appointment with a behavioural optometrist next wednesday so I will ask him then. There is a centre here in cairns that specialises in Irlen also, so hopefully if we need to go down that path it will be easily accessible.

What sort of signs made you look into Irlen? Evan can read ok. But his comprehension is the problem.

My now 15 year old went to the irlen clinic at the newcastle uni when he was in kindy as he was reading backwards and was writing mirror image so if you turned the paper over it would be correct but he actually would write it back the front anyway he was tested and it took a few visits until he found blue lenses helped him so we ordered the blue lenses it took a few weeks to get them and then our optometrist put them in a pair of glasses he picked he wore them for 3 years and now his reading is way above average his writing is still not so great it is tiny and very hard to read but the right way around.

There are two books out about Irlen Syndrome that are available on amazon.com, and elsewhere. One is an older book called Reading by the Colors from the 1990s. The other is new and called The Irlen Revolution - it talks about how Irlen filters not only help kids learning to read but also help with symptoms from autism, traumatic brain injury, migraines, etc. Also visit Irlen.com and you's find much more about Irlen Sydrome.

Hey Efjay, how'd you go?