Why can’t Johnny read ?

Word

Blindness

Irlen Syndrome

What do these people have in common ?

• Tom Cruise, actor • Whoopi Goldberg,

actress • Magic Johnson,

athlete • Walt Disney,

cartoonist • Thomas Edison,

inventor • Winston Churchill,

former prime minister• Leonardo Da Vinci,

Renaissance artist

• Harrison Ford, actor • Robin Williams, actor and comedian • Albert Einstein, scientist • Harry Belafonte, singer, entertainer • Cher, entertainer, actress • Danny Glover, actor • Ted Turner, media mogul, philanthropist

Richard Branson didn't breeze through school. School was something of a nightmare for him. His scores on standardized tests were dismal, pointing to a dismal future. He was embarrassed by his dyslexia and found his education becoming more and more difficult . He felt as if he had been written off.

Tom Cruise : “Being dyslexic, I had to train myself to focus my attention. I became very visual and learned how to create mental images in order to comprehend what I read”

Whoopi Golberg :

Woopi had a lot of difficulty in school, but it was not until she was an adult that she learned that she had dyslexia. When Whoopi was growing up, she remembers being called dumb and stupid because she had a lot of problems reading.

Winston Churchill : “I was, on the whole, considerably discouraged by my school days. It was not pleasant to feel oneself so completely outclassed and left behind at the beginning of the race.”

Reading

Problems

Headaches

Banks of Fluorescents

Call 63 31 6825 Web page: irlen.8m.com

Words Going Blurry

For people generally 1 in every 7

or 8 people has the Irlen Syndrome

(12-14%)

For people with reading difficulty, other learning difficulties or migraines it is 1 in 2 (46%)

Most do not know they have this problem

Light from the Sun

For a particular person these frequencies may be comfortable

But these may be a worry

Comfortable or Stressful

At the Optometrists

V B R L X D F H J Z

EASYNot sustained attention

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information it contains, for example, employees or people interested in purchasing a product

VERY HARD

At Home

Sustained attention

Washout Blurry Halo

Rivers Seasaws Shaky DISTORTIONS

Almost always found in parents, grandparents/ other family

members

Helen Irlen’s Discovery

What May Improve

Less light sensitivityPrint clearer/ readable

Less tiring, less stress, more comfortBetter concentration and more effort

Increased reading / better understandingLearning success and happiness

Better behaviour (for some)

• Symptoms include : The person :

• Says that the print is going blurry or fuzzy

• Reports letters seeming to run together, or fade or disappear

• Print on white paper seems to move, either shaking, shimmering or swirling,

• Sees ghosting or doubling of letters and words

• Avoids reading wherever possible

• Frequently reverses words, letters or numbers when writing

• Reads slowly

• Lacks concentration when reading

• Cannot read for long without taking a break or looking up from the page

o Easily distracted in class

o Eyes hurt, ache or burn. Eyes feel dry, sandy, scratchy or itchy. Eyes feel tired or strained

o Finds copying from the blackboard difficult

o Has difficulty copying from a book or own work

o Reads well for a while but shows rapid fatigue after just a few lines or pages

o Frequently loses place when reading, skipping lines.

o Reads much better earlier in the day, when the eyes are fresher

o Frequently loses place or skips lines or repeats lines

o Reads hesitatingly, stopping and starting a lot

• Has a very narrow span when reading, reading one word at a time and seeing one or two words at a time

• Frequently leaves our words (often words that are known) or substitutes other words

• Confuses letters that look alike, like b,d m n u a e I o u

• Does not notice full stops

• Has to re-read passages to get the meaning or to remember what has just been read

• Confuses little words of the same shape, like was/saw, for/of, dog/boy

• Is frequently car sick

• When riding in a car, becomes sleeping or drowsy

It should be stressed that not all of the above symptoms need be present for Irlen tinted lenses to be helpful.

Interesting Clients

• “I can walk in a straight line !”• “I can see insects crawling round the

page.”• Arriving with 2 pairs of sunglasses on.• Arriving with a headache.

DO OPTOMETRISTS SUPPORT IRLEN ?

In Lithgow 10

In Bathurst 100%

In Orange 100%

In Dubbo 5/6 (maybe the 6th too)

Most of the Western Region Optometrists have given me referrals. Most of my referrals are from optometrists

The official training course for Optometrists in both Britain and N.S.W.includes training in the Irlen method, stating that coloured filters often help, but it must be the right colour, carefully chosen.

CHECKLIST -WHO HAS IT ?

1. DOES READING DIFFICULTY RUN IN

THE FAMILY ?

2. DOES READING ‘FALL OFF” QUICKLY ?

3. DOES THE “STARING TEST” SHOW A POSITIVE RESULT ?

Do you or your child have a problem ?

TRY THE STARING

TEST

6331 3236

Just put your glasses on and stare at the words below for 15 secs without blinking (best under fluorescents)If you have any of the problems listed below, see your optometrist first, then call us for a free phone consultation, (especially if problems like this run in your family) : Print going blurry, print moving, swirling effect, print washout, print lifting off the page, letters running together, rivers of white down the page, a feeling that you are getting a headache.

4. DOES READING LEAD TO

HEADACHES ?

Some clients

5. WHAT ABOUT :

a. low concentrationb. failure of special reading program like Reading Recovery.c. weak comprehensiond. forgetting what is reade. saying the print goes blurry?

6. WHAT DOES THE SELF-TEST SAY ?

See www.wordsclear.com

7. DOES COLOUR HELP ?

THE END

For more information : wordsclear.com

93% of a group of 465 people wearing Irlen Lenses

reported a definite improvement in reading •fluency,• concentration•and comprehension

wearing Irlen Filters for a 12-month period (Whiting and Robinson, 1988 The same group followed up after six years continued to report that these same benefits were maintained, refuting the possibility of aplacebo effect.)

(Whiting, Robinson, Parrot 1994) (Australian Journal of Remedial Education).

Dr. Daniel Amen states the following:“I am a board certified child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist, medical director of Amen Clinics, Inc. (four psychiatric/brain imaging clinics), and Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine. “For the past 10 years, my clinics have screened all of our patients for the Irlen Syndrome. When appropriate, we have made many referrals to Irlen Clinics and our patients have successfully used Irlen Filters to alleviate many symptoms, including headaches, learning and reading problems, light sensitivity, and depth perception issuesIn performing before and after scans with the Irlen Filters as the only intervention, we have seen the brain become significantly more balanced. I have often been amazed at the improvements our patients have experienced. My sense is that the lenses help to filter out certain colors of the light spectrum that are irritating to brain circuits.“ Daniel C Amen M.D.

Albert Einstein :

His teachers reported that he was mentally slow, unsociable, and adrift forever in his foolish dreams”

Born in 1847, Thomas Edison was a brilliant scientist and inventor. He was thrown out of school when he was 12 because he was thought to be dumb. He was noted to be terrible at mathematics, unable to focus, and had difficulty with words and speech. It was very clear, however, that Thomas Edison was an extremely intelligent student despite his poor performance in school.

Alexander Graham Bell,

inventor

George Patton, U.S. general

Henry Winkler, actor

Nelson Rockefeller, former

governor of New York

Woodrow Wilson, former U.S.

president

Hans Christian Anderson,

author

Lara Flynn Boyle, actress

• George Walker Bush - 43rd US

President

•Vince McMahon, World

Wrestling Entertainment r

• Richard Branson, Founder of

Virgin brand

“My Other Hat”

• Beginning Reading• Year 1 Reading.

Overlap of Irlen and ADHD

ADHD IRLEN

ADHD and

IRLEN

ENCOURAGED SUSTAINED READING TEST

Purpose :

♦ To encourage the child to work hard at reading for sustained periods, and to test how long this work can be sustained.

♦ To find out the child’s highest mastery level.

♦ To introduce the parent to controlled vocabulary readers.

♦ To find out if there are any reading problems to remedy.

♦ To check whether Irlen symptoms are shown by difficulty with sustained reading.

♦ To tire the eyes a little so as to have accurate results in the Staring Test.

Webpage : irlen.com

Call 63 31 6825

Or Yellow Pages under “Reading Improvement”

Bathurst Irlen Centre

Web page : irlen.8m.com

Irlen Dyslexia Clinic (Central West)

See Yellow Pages Under “Reading”

Beginning Reading program available

Mastery of all the previous work that is required for the

Accounts for 50% of

The Confidence that comes from Mastery of all previous work

Called by Bloom “Cognitive Entry Behaviours”

Called by Bloom “Affective Entry Characteristics”

25%

25%

Quality of Instruction : • Finding starting Point • Explanation • Variety of Approaches • Cues • Feedback and correction • Encouragement :

Mastery Learning – The Ideal Learning Situation by Benjamin Bloom

In Reading 60 w.p.m.

ESTHER’S READING • Sentences about Esther and her home Esther can see the dog.The dog sees Esther

• Sound words – phonics

an can man van ran ban

• Sight words – the most common words

and me Mum do

• Stories by Esther – in an exercise book

• Basal Reader – e.g. Ladybird Key Words series

• Reading for Fun e.g. Dr Seuss early readers

THE END

The Groove Squad Cheerleaders

Environmental Stressors

Lighting

Glare

Bright Color

High Contrast

Patterns and Stripes

DetailsSustained

AttentionContinuous

Performance

Physical Symptoms

Headaches and migrainesDizziness

Stomach achesAnxiety, nervousness and/or irritability

Strain and discomfortFatigue

Physical Ailments muscle tension, chronic pain, irritable bowel syndrome

(suppressed immune system)

Behavioural Symptoms

Aggression and Defiant Behavior

Cognitive and Behavioral Changes

Anxiety, Irritability, Anger, Rage

Depression

Attention Symptoms

Poor Attending/Listening Skills

Sensory Integration Difficulties

Poor Depth Perception

Distractibility

Night Blindness

Emotional and Behaviour

Learning & Reading ProblemsDyslexia, ADHD, LD

Emotional ProblemsDepression

Anxiety DisorderOCD

Conduct Disorders and Behavior Problems

Looking, ListeningReading, MathsWriting, Copying Answer Sheets

Computer, TV, MoviesOther visually-intensive activities

Stressful Activities

Desired Outcomes

Improve Perception

Decrease Physical Symptoms

Increase Calmness and General Well-Being

Desired Outcomes (contd)

Increase ability to handle reading and paper work

Increase sense of competency and of self-worth

Increase time spent in reading

Increased comprehension of what is read

6. HAS A VISION TEST HAD A PUZZLING RESULT ?