Irlen Spectral Filters or Irlen Lenses, are colored tinted lenses crafted specifically for the wearer and worn as glasses or contact lenses. They are intended to help people with the perceptual processing difficulty known as Irlen Syndrome, also known as Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome or visual stress.
With a filtered lens, the page will still look white; but the print will be clear, stable and comfortable. Irlen lenses will not change the color of what you are looking at or make things darker.
“Your Irlen Spectral Filter color is the exact color your brain requires to normalize brain function. That’s right, not just improve, but normalize your brain function. In other words, with your Irlen Spectral Filters, your brain can now function the way it would if you didn’t have Irlen Syndrome at all.” Irlen
The Irlen Method is scientifically proven to correct the issues related to Irlen Syndrome astions?nd is supported by experts in the fields of education, psychology, medicine, ophthalmology, and neuroscience around the world.
Questions?
- Color intervention is filtering the frequencies of light to which you are sensitive to.
- Light-based sensitivities can result in physical discomfort, and perceptual difficulties in the environment.
- Seventy percent of the information an individual receives enters through the eyes and must be correctly interpreted by the brain.
- Any problem in the way the brain processes visual information can cause difficulties in the general ability to function.
- Sensory overload causes problems processing, interpreting, and interacting with the environment.
What is Irlen Syndrome?
Irlen syndrome is a neurologically-based visual perceptual dysfunction. It affects the processing of visual information from the eye to the visual cortex and results in cortical hyper activation.
Sounds complicated…
Let’s break it down.
What are the symptoms related to perceptual stress?
- Reading
- Language
- Sensory integration
- Speech
- motor coordination
- Body tremors
- Headaches
- Seizure activity
- Word retrieval
- Communication ability
- Anxiety
- Irritability.
Correcting Irlen Syndrome can result in the following improvements:
- Better comprehension
- Read faster and longer
- Improved accuracy
- Reduced headaches and migraines
- Improved flow and fluency
- Improved motivation
- Improved academic performance
- Better attention and comprehension
- Better self-esteem
Irlen filters can be effective for those who experience stress on the system regardless of whether the cause of this stress is inherited or acquired.
This service is currently available for patients that have been assessed and prescribed Color Therapy Lenses by a Certified Irlen Diagnostician. If you would like to be referred to a diagnostician, please contact us!
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Information for other professionals:
Is the Irlen Method the missing piece to your puzzle?
Typical problems that can be helped by the Irlen Method:
- Sensory Overload caused by bright lights, fluorescent lights, and sunlight. Lighting is stressful; and this results in behaviors to filter out the light, poor eye contact, and physical symptoms such as anxiety or headaches.
- Environmental Distortions where the individual sees the world in a distorted fashion. Objects are blurry, moving, changing, and can disappear.
- Print Distortions make learning or reading difficult. The individual may have good or even advanced reading skills but has trouble with reading comprehension or experiences strain and fatigue when reading or doing other activities.
- Photophobia or light sensitivity.
Headaches and Migraine Research:
For individuals whose headaches or migraines are caused by light sensitivity, the Irlen Method can make a big difference.
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Those individuals with TBI suffer with extreme symptoms of stress, showing how stress can affect many different areas of functioning.
When under stress, the brain, perhaps caused by the damaged brain’s inability to cope, affects not just reading, but also many of the physical, cognitive, and emotional areas where functioning is typically affected by a traumatic head injury.
- Color appears to protect the brain from further stress and allow healing to take place.
- Filtering specific wavelengths of light appears to not only let the brain function more normally, but it also appears to let the brain heal.
- The longer that head injury clients wear their Irlen Spectral Filters, the greater their ability to function normally cognitively, behaviorally and academically, indicating that color may, in fact, allow healing to take place.
- Colored filters can calm down the brain by reducing stress on the central nervous system.
Click Here for more information on Irlen and Traumatic Head Injuries
Veterans, Military Servicemen and Woman Information:
Servicemen and woman who have experienced concussions, traumatic brain injury, and repeated blast exposures may be helped by Irlen Spectral Filters if they experience any of the following:
- Extreme light sensitivity (i.e., sensitivity to bright lights, sunlight, or fluorescent lights)
- Chronic headaches or migraines that are not relieved by other courses of treatment and do not respond to medication.
- Changes in vision or perception that are not corrected with optometric glasses.
- Difficulty with reading or distortions on the printed page.
- Changes in depth perception.
Click Here for more information on military and veterans.
How is the Irlen Method tested?
The patented Irlen Method uses unique colors to filter out the wave lengths of light to which the individual is sensitive to, allowing the brain to process visual information normally.
The ability to determine and filter just those wave lengths of light which are creating the problem is the key to the success of the Irlen Method.
Each person needs a different color, and this can only be determined on an individual basis. Choosing the right color is critical and needs to be tested by a Certified Irlen Diagnostician.
Once you’ve been prescribed the appropriate filter to be worn, our eyecare professionals will help you with the next step. Glasses or contacts lenses!
The science behind the Irlen Method:
The Irlen Method and the efficacy of colored overlays and colored lenses has been the subject of over 200 research studies encompassing the disciplines of education, psychology, and medicine.
To date, more than 100 of these studies supporting the use of colored overlays and lenses to treat the perceptual processing difficulties associated with Irlen Syndrome are published in peer-reviewed academic and scientific journals.
Studies suggest that 46% of those identified with reading problems, dyslexia, attention deficit disorder, or learning difficulties suffer from Irlen Syndrome and can be helped by the Irlen Method.
Sometimes the Irlen Method is the only solution needed, but more often, the Irlen Syndrome is just one layer of the individual’s problems, and the Irlen Method can be one piece of the solution puzzle. This method does not replace the need for instruction, remediation, or medical intervention.
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