Irlen syndrome diagnosis and intervention
WHAT IS IRLEN SYNDROME?
Irlen Syndrome (also referred to at times as Meares-Irlen Syndrome, Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome, and Visual Stress) is a perceptual processing disorder. It is not an optical problem. It is a problem with the brain’s ability to process visual information. This problem tends to run in families and is not currently identified by other standardized educational or medical tests.
Irlen Syndrome can affect many different areas, including:
- Academic and work performance
- Behavior
- Attention
- Ability to sit still
- Concentration
This problem can manifest itself differently for each individual. This problem is not remediable and is often a lifetime barrier to learning and performance. If you suffer from any of the following, Irlen Syndrome might be your problem:
- Print looks different
- Environment looks different
- Slow or inefficient reading
- Poor comprehension
- Eye strain
- Fatigue
- Headaches
- Difficulty with math computation
- Difficulty copying
- Difficulty reading music
- Poor sports performance
- Poor depth-perception
- Low motivation
- Low self-esteem
Symptoms of Irlen Syndrome
Light Sensitivity:
- Bothered by glare, fluorescent lights, bright lights, sunlight and sometimes lights at night
- Some individuals experience physical symptoms and feel tired, sleepy, dizzy, anxious, or irritable. Others experience headaches, mood changes, restlessness or have difficulty staying focused, especially with bright or fluorescent lights.
Reading Problems:
- Poor comprehension
- Misreads words
- Problems tracking from line to line
- Reads in dim light
- Skips words or lines
- Reads slowly or hesitantly
- Takes breaks
- Loses place
- Avoids reading
Discomfort:
- Strain and fatigue
- Tired or sleepy
- Headaches or nausea
- Fidgety or restless
- Eyes that hurt or become watery
Attention and Concentration Problems:
- Problems with concentration when reading and doing academic tasks
- Often people can appear to have other conditions, such as attention deficit disorder, and are given medication unnecessarily.
Writing Problems
- Trouble copying
- Unequal spacing
- Unequal letter size
- Writing up or downhill
- Inconsistent spelling
Other Characteristics:
- Strain or fatigue from computer use
- Difficulty reading music
- Sloppy, careless math errors
- Misaligned numbers in columns
- Ineffective use of study time
- Lack of motivation
- Grades do not reflect the amount of effort
Depth Perception
- Clumsiness
- Difficulty catching balls
- Difficulty judging distances
- Additional caution necessary while driving
Distortions:
- Words on the page lack clarity or stability; i.e., may appear to be blurry, moving, or disappear
KEY FACTS
Symptoms of Irlen Syndrome Include:
- Sensitivity to bright and fluorescent lighting and glare
- Slow or inefficient reading
- Poor reading comprehension
- Poor attention and concentration
- Eye strain
- Fatigue
- Headaches and migraines
- Poor depth perception
Speech Therapy
What is speech therapy?
Speech therapy is treatment that improves your ability to talk and use other language skills. It helps you express your thoughts and understand what other people are saying to you. It can also improve skills like your memory and ability to solve problems.
You’ll work with a speech therapist to find exercises and treatments that address your specific needs. Some people need help talking and communicating. Others need speech therapy to process and understand language better.
Speech therapy can help you improve your:
- Early language skills (especially children learning to talk and communicate).
- Ability to use your voice.
- Language comprehension (how well you understand words and language).
- Fluency (how well and how comfortably you can use language).
- Clarity and expression (how easily you can communicate what you want to).
How do I know if I need speech therapy?
If your healthcare provider suspects that you or your child has a speech disorder, they’ll recommend some initial screenings. These tests will help determine the underlying cause of any communication issues.
For example, if your child has trouble communicating, your healthcare provider may refer your child to an audiologist for a hearing test. If your child passes the hearing test, they might need to work with a speech-language pathologist.
Procedure Details
What does speech therapy do?
Speech therapy will help you improve your ability to speak and communicate with language. What kind of speech therapy you need depends on several factors, including your age and which health condition or speech challenges you might have.
Your speech-language pathologist will recommend appropriate treatment based on your specific situation. There are many different approaches and categories of speech therapy, and your speech therapist will find one that works best for you.
Art Therapy
Art therapy means using artistic activities and products resulting from these activities, in order to enhance people’s well-being. Art therapy may help us have a better view upon our inner conflicts and emotional deadlocks, and to understand what has to be done to deal with them.
When is art therapy needed?
Art therapy is needed especially when verbal communication is not possible or is hardly possible – we are talking about preschool children, atypical children or adults with impaired speaking ability.
Likewise, it can be used for children and adults able to speak, but who can communicate better through art. Art therapy may be used as single therapeutic intervention, or may be used as an auxiliary element in a larger frame of therapeutic techniques applied to a patient.
Its Benefits:
- Aims to help people navigate and overcome challenges caused by Mental, Developmental, Physical, Emotional and Behavioural difficulties.
- Foster self-esteem and self- awareness.
- Cultivate emotional resilience.
- Promote insight.
- Enhance social and cognitive skills.
- Enhance sensorimotor functions.
- Reduce conflicts and distress.
- Support personal and relational treatment goals as well as community concerns
It is suitable for all development and ages, from very young children, children, adolescents, adults.
Comprehensive Assessments and Evaluation
Conducting a thorough evaluation and administering the right assessments is the first and most important step in designing an effective intervention. Alef Centre focuses on deeply studying the case of the individual with learning difficulties by gathering all the necessary information that can lead to design the right intervention for the individual who suffers from learning difficulties. The information gathering process includes two steps:
- Thorough interviews with the individual and his/her direct circle of personal relations (parents, care givers, teachers…etc.) to pinpoint the type of difficulty and decide on the type of assessments required.
- Administering the necessary formal assessments. The following assessments are available at Alef in addition to various screeners:
- Irlen screening and diagnosis
- Behavior rating scales
- Individual Academic achievement tests such as:
- Woodcock Johnson cognitive and achievement tests
- Wechsler Individual Achievement Test®-Third Edition (WIAT®-III)
- Individual cognitive abilities tests such as:
- Woodcock Johnson test of cognitive abilities
- ECAD
- CAP
- Portage
Early intervention
Behavior management
The number of children with behavior problems is increasing around the world as recent research indicated due to different social, psychological and environmental factors. Behavior problems are considered one of the heaviest loads that parents and teachers have to deal with on a daily basis. Alef Centre provides the following services to help reduce the burden on parents and teachers’ shoulders:
- Thorough investigation and assessments and analysis to find out the underlining causes of behavioral problems.
- Developing behavioral management programs/ plans
- Developing and monitoring individual educational plans (IEPs) in collaboration with schools to help improve the student’s academic, social and behavior performance.
- Parent consultation and training (individual or group sessions).
- Designing and monitoring behavioral intervention plans.
- Training for teachers, special education teachers, shadowing teachers or other paraprofessionals who work with the individual with behavioral problems.
Parents support
Since parents, siblings and caregivers are in direct and daily contact with the individual with learning challenges, they become the most influential factor in the intervention process. Interventions only succeed when there is a supportive environment at home that caters for the needs of the individual with learning challenges. This happens when those people clearly understand the problems and feelings of their beloved one with learning challenges and know how to help him/her. At Alef Centre, we believe that the first step in any intervention is to support the caregivers with sufficient knowledge and case related training to help them successfully deal with the situation and ease the burden on their shoulders.
We present parent support programs that consists of:
- Consultation
- Awareness and training workshops specific to each type of difficulty (individual and group sessions are available)
- Design individualized home interventions (including case study, setting dynamic intervention plans, strategy modelling, follow up)
- Training on study skills (for parents and students)
Learning Support Assistant training
Outreach Inclusion Programs and Teacher Training
At Alef Centre, we believe that every child is able to learn and that every child deserves to be included in the mainstream education within a supportive learning environment. We also believe that because teachers play a great role in supporting their students, then every teacher deserves to be supported and equipped with the sufficient knowledge, training and strategies to be able to cater for the needs of children with learning difficulties in her/his classroom.
Alef Centre provides training sessions for teachers on the following domains:
- Types of learning difficulties (dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, ADD, ADHD, visual processing disorder, auditory processing disorder, giftedness, etc.)
- Accommodations specific to types of difficulties
- Developing Individual educational plans (IEPs)
- Classroom interventions
- Classroom management
- Behavior management
- Shadow teacher training
Additionally, Alef centre provides outreach inclusion programs in collaboration with schools.
Social skills groups and training for children
Remedial programs for students with average or above average (high) intellectual abilities but are not performing well in school. Typically, remedial students are not struggling because of their intellectual abilities instead because they are struggling with one subject area like reading, writing or mathematics. Remedial programs are designed to help give the students the individual attention that they need to build their skills and their confidence so that they can live up to their potentials.
Professional development training and workshops
We conduct various Workshops and Training, such as:
- Workshops for the mother & teachers
- Behavior modification workshop.
- Learning support workshops
- Art Therapy Workshops
- Irlen Syndrome training:
- Irlen® screening
- Irlen® diagnostics
I you’re looking for other workshops, kindly whatsapp us on +971567783020
Life coaching
Coaching
Help individuals identify and challenge individual thoughts, feelings and behaviours that are self-defeating. It deals with many common daily challenges such as stress, lack of confidence, perfectionism, loss of meaning and purpose, poor communication skills or being less successful at work[/one_half_last]
Learning support services
Success Stories
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“Wearing the Irlen glasses gives me peace and comfort. It is amazing how little thing can make a big difference.”
Story 3
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“I am in grade 5, I wore Irlen glasses today and the world feels better with glasses, if you wear glasses, then a lot of things will become brighter and clearer as well as the world will not be confusing.”
Story 2
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“I never thought a lens can make a huge difference, I can see everything clear, the colors look more colorful. And I never thought that I have word distortion”
story1
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I feel that this day is my birthday, i feel happy .. i feel alive.. I really couldn’t imagine that it will make that much of difference. I feel i just had a cup of ice cream with strawberry and mix berries flavor! Thanks again Diagnostician Mona, love you.
Used Irlen lenses For The First Time
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Thank you for the nice and creative sessions it was really what i want to relax and feel fresh again in my busy / stressful life.
Joined An Art Therapy Workshop