Blue Colored Lenses
In last’s week blog I wrote about how our family decided against pursuing vision therapy for Travis. It was not the right fit for us.
During the same time I was approached by an aide that worked with Travis at school. Staff members knew that we were trying to get to the bottom of what may be causing Travis’s issues with reading and writing. She shared with me her personal story of her son and Irlen Syndrome.
She told me that the school would not like her sharing this type of information with the family of a student, but she felt strongly that her story could help Travis. Her son also had a disability. A previous conversation with her had prompted me to research a gluten and casein free diet. I wrote a bit about that in my first blog post, “The Origin Story”.
I have found over the years that mothers of children with disabilities are a great resource. The type of disability does not matter. When moms of children with special needs find something that may be helpful to another mom, we share it.
She loaned me a book, “Reading by the Colors: Overcoming Dyslexia and other Reading Disabilities through the Irlen Method”, by Helen Irlen.
As I gather my information to write this article, I realize that I still have her book. I know I have paid her kindness forward many times when I loaned out books never to be seen again. Her phone number is in it, but do people still have home phones?
Helen Irlen discovered that a perceptual dysfunction could be the cause of some individuals with reading difficulties. In 1991 when the book was published she called the problem Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome (SSS). It is now known as Irlen Syndrome (IS).
Irlen states, “Individuals with Irlen Syndrome perceive the world around them in a distorted way as a result of a sensitivity to certain wavelengths of light”.
If you’ve been following our story from the beginning, you can understand why this statement perked my interest. We had already determined that Travis has issues with extreme sensitivity. It could make sense that the problems he faced unlocking the door to reading was somehow sensory based.
Could this be a piece to the puzzle?
Irlen says, “The distortions of Irlen Syndrome are most noticeable when an individual tries to read black characters on white paper”.
This describes every worksheet the school handed out to their students. And we were already learning that Travis had trouble completing worksheets. We were beginning to think that maybe he was a tactile learner. But could Irlen Syndrome be contributing to his problems with reading?
We knew that it was important to get to the bottom of Travis’s reading issues as soon as possible. When children struggle in the classroom it can affect their self-esteem.
Travis had asked several times why he couldn’t be like everyone else.
Per the Irlen Method brochure, “Individuals with Irlen Syndrome may read slowly or inefficiently or have poor reading comprehension, strain or fatigue. Irlen Syndrome can also affect attention span, listening, energy level, motivation, work production and mental health.
Individuals with Irlen Syndrome may be viewed as underachievers or as having behavior, attitude, or motivational problems. The problem can coexist with other learning difficulties. Some people diagnosed with learning difficulties, dyslexia or ADD may be, in addition, suffering from Irlen Syndrome”.
Given this information, and with a recommendation of a woman that not only worked with Travis, but also used the Irlen Method for her own son, didn’t we owe it to Travis to have him evaluated?
If there was the slightest chance that it could help?
These are the symptoms of Irlen Syndrome as listed in the brochure.
Light sensitivity - bothered by glare, fluorescent lights, bright lights, sun light.
Inefficient reading - difficulty reading print, numbers, or musical notes. Problems may include print that shifts, shakes, blurs, moves, doubles, disappears, or becomes difficult to perceive.
Slow reading rate - inability to read letters, numbers, musical notes or words in groups. This results in problems tracking, correctly identifying words, or the ability to skim or speed read.
Attention deficit - problems concentrating while reading or doing school work. May have difficulty staying on task, takes breaks, looks away, becomes restless, fidgety or tired.
Strain or fatigue - feeling strain, tension, fatigue, sleepy or headaches with reading and other perceptual activities.
Poor depth perception - inability to accurately judge distance or spatial relationships.
Well, Travis had just fractured his wrist by rollerblading into a curb. Was this a poor depth perception issue or a 100% boy issue?
So what is the Irlen Method? And how can it help?
The Irlen Method is a patented technique which used precision tinted filters, worn as glasses (or covered overlays), to reduce or eliminate perception difficulties and light sensitivity.
Could this work for Travis? We wouldn’t know until we did an intensive diagnostic assessment. Another stone to unturn. Another stone not covered by insurance. But we had to know.
After his evaluation Travis was found to have a profile consistent with Irlen Syndrome. The evaluation also determined which colors would work best for Travis.
As a result of these findings we asked the school to make the following modifications:
When reading from a book use a blue overlay (provided by us).
Print his worksheets on blue paper (provided by us).
Allow Travis to wear a visor or cap with a brim to protect his eyes from the glare of the fluorescent lighting.
Allow Travis to read with natural light if possible.
Allow Travis to wear glasses with Irlen Filters in the classroom.
Travis’s Irlen Filters were a dark shade of blue. They could be mistaken for sunglasses, which a teacher may not allow.
We shared the evaluation with the school. We found if difficult to get them on board with our requests. Homework continued to come home on white paper.
The evaluation states that there will be a school adjustment. Individuals often feel awkward wearing Irlen Filters among peers. Teachers need to introduce the need for the glasses and explain to the students that because everyone processes perceptual information differently, some students may need special glasses to help them be more effective in their reading, writing and other academic tasks.
I have serious doubts that this ever happened.
I read somewhere that if a teacher models compassion to struggling students, that the other students in the classroom would do the same.
Based on teacher comments in Travis’s IEP, the constant negative reporting I received when visiting with teachers, and the lack of follow through on modifications, I did not believe that the teachers Travis had at this time were modeling compassion.
I will also say that during Travis’s school years he did have several wonderful and caring teachers.
We were somewhat skeptical. But the brochure had an attachment with several glowing reviews. From a Staffing Specialist at a large county school district. From a Reading Education Coordinator. And this one from a Special Education Director,
“All special education referrals must have an SSS (also know as Irlen Syndrome) screening as part of the referral process. We have evidence of children in three months going from a non-reader to a grade level reader and no longer a behavior problem; children going from a C/D student to an A/B student immediately upon placing on the color filters”.
If only I had known then what I know now, I might have taken some of these reviews with a grain of salt. Today my thinking would be more along the line of “that district would do anything to keep children out of the special education program”, because of the expense of serving them.
The positive reviews made us hopeful. Even if the percentage of success was small we felt like we should take the gamble. We decided against vision therapy because we knew there was zero chance of success because of the impossible process.
The changes we had to make to give the Irlen Method a shot were doable for our family.
Travis’s evaluation also stated, “Many individuals with school difficulties have a long history of feeling dumb, lazy or bad. Changing a student’s ability to be able to perform does not immediately eliminate a poor self-concept or change motivation, attitude toward school or academic performance.
Academic improvement may not occur immediately, and difficulties may continue as Travis learns any missing skills and to trust himself and the Irlen process. Learning missing skills can take 3-5 years and compensation strategies and support may always be necessary”.
In other words the Irlen Method may or may not work for Travis.
As with any new thing we tried with Travis, we understood that it was important to get his buy-in. He obviously was part of the process during the evaluation, and we pumped him up about the possibility for positive change that wearing glasses with blue colored lenses may bring him.
We had to encourage him to wear the glasses. And remind him time and time again that it was important to wear them all day. That it may take some time to see some benefit.
During this time the bus would pick him up at my cookie store before school. The driver would pull up to the front door for him to get on the bus. I would then run through the store and wave at him from the back door as the bus made the circle around the building.
Imagine my dismay as I realized he had already taken off the glasses between the doors, only seconds later.
For five months we begged and pleaded with him to wear the glasses. In the back and forth notes from his teacher she would tell us that he was refusing to wear the glasses at school. Where he needed them most.
And making the other necessary modifications at this school placement was not going to happen.
Eventually we put the glasses away. I decided if they were helping him in any way he would want to wear them. Wouldn’t he?
Like with last week’s blog on the efficacy of vision therapy, I decided to do some research on Google. Only today it was on Irlen Syndrome.
And again this week I quote Steven Novella from www.sciencebasedmedicine.org, “The history of medicine is littered with ideas that did not pan out, worthless treatments, non-existent diseases, and frequent error. The primary lesson of the history of medicine is that new ideas need to go through a rigorous process of evaluation before they should be generally accepted and implemented. With clinical evidence designed to eliminate all forms of bias and illusion. The alternative is to have systems of medicine based on fairy tales and imagination.”
Novella goes on to say, “Many of these medical treatments or systems, after being discarded by science because they failed in rigorous evaluation, continue on as scientific zombies - unkillable, immune to evidence and reason, going through the motions of life without actually being alive”.
In his opinion, Irlen Syndrome is one such scientific zombie. Ugh!!
“There are just those things that parents think are going to unlock their child - but they don’t. You sometimes think, this is it, if we jut do it enough they’ll get better. We cling to that hope.” - Kathy Son
Travis is wearing his blue colored lenses.