Irlen Dyslexia Clinic (Central West)

What is the problem?

How can it be ?

An optometrist says “Glasses not needed” but
A person still has trouble with reading ?

For some people it is easy to read the 4 lines of 5 letters that the optometrist asks them to read. It is not a task which tires the eyes.

But when the same person goes home and tries to read several pages of close print, it is a different story.

This is because the task requires sustained attention – looking at a lot of words for a much longer time.

Colour Frequencies

The light by which we read is made up of the colours of the ranbow.

For most people these colours cause no problem.

How the Irlen Syndrome was Discovered

Helen Irlen was helping some adults with reading.

It was very hard for all of them to read well.
She asked them, 'When you have been reading for a while, what do the words on the page look like ?"

They told her things like :

"The words go blurry."
"The words move around."
"The words lift up off the page."
"I can't see the words any more."

One of them said a strange thing.
He said "When I am reading a story that is on this colour paper, it doesn't go blurry like it does on white paper."

So on her next day with the grown ups, Helen Irlen brought a lot of different coloured plastic sheets to put over the words, for them to try.
She soon found that they all had a colour that helped them to read, but it was a different colour for each person.

Now, many years later, there are 100,000 people around the world who wear the coloured glasses that she invented.

They help children and adults too read longer, each time they read.

They help children and adults to think more about what they are reading.

Autism

For good information about Autism and the Irlen Syndrome, use the link to Helen Irlen’s site.

http://www.irlen.com/index_sss.html

Fluorescent Lights

Fluorescent Lights are often “deadly” to people who have the Irlen Syndrome.

Headaches

Headaches can have lots of causes, like stress, back problems.

If your headaches happen more after you do reading or exams, or after a day of bookwork , it may well be an Irlen Syndrome headache,

and if so your Irlen acetate or tint may help a lot.

Link for more information