I just came across an old post questioning whether Irlen Syndrome is real and felt I just to post my experience. Our second daughter was born in 2006. When she started school at four we noticed she had an issue with recalling information and spoke to her teachers. She moved on through primary and still had recall issues, she would read a page, and by the next page couldn’t remember what had happened. So she never read a book. In her last year of primary her teacher (who was dyslexic) recommended we had our daughter tested for dyslexia privately. We did this and the results after four hours of tests were negative. But we were urged to have her tested for pure visual disturbance. We did this, and sure enough the results came back positive. At age 11 she got her very dark purple tinted glasses which, over the next four years, lightened as her brain retrained itself. In her first year at college she got a distinction in childcare and this year has started a diploma in photography. She is flying. So for anyone who says Irlen Syndrome is not a thing, is made up or nonsense I’m telling you now it’s real and more importantly manageable. For our daughter learning was throwing information into a revolving filing cabinet and then trying to find it again. We were told her visual cortex was on spin cycle when everyone else’s was on wash. Primary was a nightmare but after the glasses she was just a normal kid learning as any other kid learns.
Unfortunately in the UK diagnosis and treatment is not available on the National Health under 16, but the money we spent was a real investment as it changed her life. As I’m sure it changed Johnny Depp’s!