Irlen
Frequently Asked Questions

Blurring of print
Movement of print
Missing lines and/or words
Losing place in text
Difficulty copying
Doubling of text
Pattern glare

Research shows 12% of the population benefits. That is about 3 in a school class! Any eye colour, any gender. If there has been a reading difficulty identified, there is a 48% chance of coloured lenses making a difference.

Optometrists check the health of the eyes and your eyesight to ensure you experience healthy 20/20 vision. That is your visual acuity e.g. short or long distance vision.

You may need just prescription glasses or coloured lenses, or you may need both.

Sometimes the symptoms of a stigmatism are similar to the flickering experienced by Irlen clients. We need to rule out the health issues first.

A New Zealander, the late Olive Meares, was the first person to bring visual perception problems to an international journal . This is where Helen Irlen, the founder, started her quest to find an instant way to remedy these problems. She was the first to dye lenses using colours, to reduce visual stress and page distortion. In England, this is still recognised as Meares-Irlen technique, in Olive’s honour.

Blue. Aqua or Turquoise were found to help a large proportion of Australasian clients, so lenses in these colours were developed for the market.