Embracing Irlen Syndrome: one adult’s journey (Part 1)
Embracing Irlen Syndrome: one adult’s journey (Parts 2, 3 and 4) available HERE
Looking for answers
Twenty-two years ago our family was introduced to the condition called Irlen Syndrome. It was something that I knew very little about. I do remember watching a TV interview a few years earlier where a lady from the USA spoke about using different coloured lenses to help one in ten people read better. That lady was Helen Irlen and remembering her interview helped us to believe that those coloured glasses might just be the answer my husband was looking for.
My husband and I were newly married. He had graduated from university as an accountant, found a great job and was studying for his professional accreditation at night. He often had hay fever and headaches which he thought were caused by the allergies. The headaches got worse – much worse. One night the pain was so bad that we had to get our doctor to come to the house and give him pain relief. The doctor ordered brain scans. That was very, very scary. The scans revealed no tumour or abnormality. Eye tests showed perfect vision. The headaches continued. I was studying for my PhD in agriculture so I did a bit of my own investigation into the headaches. I was also very curious about some other things that I had noticed about my husband. Little things, observation snippets that when you put them all together, create a more accurate picture of his learning journey and how he had managed it so far.
“He just needs to try harder”
School had not been all smooth sailing. My husband was certainly a bright student but the comments on his report cards often included words such as ‘he is a capable student who needs to try harder’, or ‘he needs to concentrate more’ or ‘he is lazy’. There were other (now obvious) signs that went unnoticed during school. He was a terrible speller, used scrawly handwriting to cover up the poor spelling, couldn’t read music and dreaded any class activity that meant reading aloud. My husband’s incredible memory and determination helped him graduate from secondary school and university but he always felt that even though he put in extraordinary effort and time, his results did not reflect that. He, like many others, simply thought that he was ‘not that bright’.
The extra study after work did not help the headaches. We hoped that once the exams were over that the headaches would stop. I knew that my husband had an excellent knowledge of the exam topic and we expected that the multi-choice exam would show that. It didn’t. More disappointment but I was beginning to put the pieces together. There were other flags that I had started to notice. In conversations, my husband often interchanged similar sounding words with very different meanings. He knew what he wanted to say but inserting the wrong word made people just a little puzzled. I am sure most would put it down to a slip of the tongue or tiredness but it was definitely a frequent event.
The Irlen Syndrome puzzle: connecting the dots
I initially thought we were dealing with dyslexia but the symptoms weren’t really aligning. Further investigation found an article that discussed ‘Irlen Dyslexia’ and the penny literally dropped. The lady in the TV interview! Headaches (tick), poor spelling (tick), poor handwriting (tick), difficulties reading aloud (tick), avoids reading (tick - reading for pleasure was not an option unless it was a newspaper) and the ticks kept mounting. BINGO! We located the nearest testing centre and made an appointment to see if coloured lenses could help the symptoms.
What we were about to learn would change our lives, our children’s lives and the lives of many others who would ask about those coloured glasses. Irlen lenses did more than just help people to read!
(Read More at Embracing Irlen Syndrome: one adult’s journey Part 2)
Author: Dr Annabel Bowcher (PhD), Science Communicator and co-author of the children’s chapter book adventure series, The Story Weavers of Bacalen.
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“Most obstacles melt away when we make up our minds to walk through them.”