"I feel very guilty about I having screamed at Alan (10) when he used to be doing his homework," admits his mother, Kathleen Moynihan. "But now that's all over and in just six months, he progressed from having the reading ability of a five and a half year old to that of an 11 year old."
Alan Moynihan suffers from Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome (SSS). It's a perceptual dysfunction caused by sensitivity to light. Cork based Mary Davies, who screens people for SSS, explains the syndrome.
"It has to do with the perceptual pathways between the eye and the brain. It seems that the pathways are not responding to the full light spectrum. People with SSS experience distortion of page background and print. The words look blurred to them or there are lines going up and down the page. People can get headaches from trying to read or, more seriously think what they're seeing is normal."
Davies, a qualified remedial teacher who worked in the secondary school sector for 10 years, decided to specialise in reading difficulties. In 1985, she left her job and set up a reading clinic in Cork. During the year, she discovered that Irlen screening was being introduced in England. Irlen screening is called after Helen Irlen, a Californian based educational psychologist.
After working with people who, despite remedial teaching, continued to experience reading failure, she discovered that if she placed a colour film on the page - or applied colour to spectacle lenses - it changed the way a printed page looked to these people.
This radical discovery acknowledged the condition known as SSS. "Something about it made sense to me," says Davies. "I could relate back to the youngsters I had taught earlier. They wouldn't have had any dyslexic tendencies or any particular emotional problems. And yet, they were failing to read. I found that the Irlen technique was the answer. I was trained in England both as, a screener and as a diagnostician.
She carried out Irlen screening at Crowley's Opticians in Cork. "If you're using reading glasses, colour can be incorporated into them. On the other hand, colour can be put on plain lenses with no optical prescript ion. We are now moving towards closer integration with opticians who are being trained in the method. In all, 20 people, mostly specialist teachers, have been trained in Ireland and the Dublin branch of Irlen is run by Marita McGeady."
The initial cost of screening is £40 and the entire treatment, including lenses, is about £200. Adults who complain of eye strain or an inability to read for a sustained period, are also tested for SSS. "We believe that half of all people who are diagnosed as having reading problems suffer from SSS," says Davies. This accounts for 5 per cent of the population. She stresses that the Irlen treatment is not magic. Some people have to re learn how to read.
Denis McSweeney (16) finds the special glasses a big help. "I spent 15 years not being able to read properly. Overall, I wasn't great at school. A teacher in my school noticed that there was something wrong with my reading. She knew Mary Davies and she brought in a questionaire for me to fill out asking me things like does the print on the page move and do I get headaches from reading. Now, I'm much better at school and I don't mind wearing the glasses at all."
Artist Sarah Iremonger (31), was recently diagnosed as having SSS. "For 30 years, I lived under a terrible level of stress. I found reading painful and driving with the sun in my face was absolutely unbearable. Now, with the coloured glasses, I've seen a complete page of writing for the first time. My work as an artist is colour and light based. Now that I can see properly, I can't understand why everyone isn't an artist."
