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The following piece of work was written by Matthew.  I feel privileged to have been able to screen him for Irlen Syndrome but I was unable to remove his ‘rainbows’ using overlays and referred him straight to Irlen Centre East.  Matthew was in his first year at High School.  He was achieving well.  He was not a child that you would immediately think had a learning difficulty.  I hope that you find his work as enlightening as I did.

 A Fire Station Door is Red

 An obvious statement.  Or is it?

In May of this year, I was diagnosed as a sufferer of Irlen syndrome.  Imagine living your whole life seeing things differently, only you take that as normal.  Doesn’t everyone see that way?  I saw the fire station door a light pink, but if you asked me, I would have said it was red.  Why?  Because I knew that fire station doors are red. 

Colours being different is only one of the many facets of this problem.  To me, the very page you are now reading appeared different, WAS different.  When I read a page, the white background would gradually get greyer and greyer, and around each letter a halo.  If I moved my focus, these little halos would stay in the same place, only now, they weren’t lining up with the letters and got in the way.  If I managed to keep my eyes still for more than about five minutes, then the halos would spread out until the whole page was so bright and blinking with pink, purple, blue, red and orange lightning bolts.  Didn’t everyone see this way? 

Each letter would stay in the same position, but some would be at a different height, as though they had lifted off the page.  Every time I blinked, the letters would change, some sinking, some rising, so I would have to read the sentence again.  I had to read paragraphs again and again, until I grew so tired of the exercise I would fall asleep or end up with a headache that would not stop until I had finished.  Either I took frequent breaks, or I had to concentrate very hard to stop myself from lapsing into drowsiness. 

Where there was a high contrast, the printed page, or telegraph wires there would be rainbows.  On either side of the wire there were rainbows, red, yellow and orange, on the top and left of the posts, and blue, purple and indigo on the bottom and right.  Wherever the rainbows were, everything began to have a halo, even to the point where, if you will excuse the irony of the situation, the R. E. teacher had a halo when he wrote on the white board.  I mention him specifically because other teachers used blackboards, which I could see without any adverse effects.  When we did art, and I was constantly told to “Paint what you see”, but was scolded for wasting red and blue paint.  Despite all the problems, I still enjoyed reading, having a good selection of books.  However, I hated “Read aloud” sessions at school, as I was afraid that I would stumble and embarrass myself.  I detested sport and any ball games, because I could not catch, bounce or throw a ball. 

Do you notice that I keep using the past tense?  That is because, thankfully the problem has been eased.  Note, please that I said eased, not cured.  The Irlen Centre was a small place, with only two or three rooms.  The lady took me into a room with my parents, took out a folder, and she asked a lot of questions, all the time watching me.  After an hour she took out a briefcase full of different coloured lenses, and the next two hours were spent trying different lenses to see which one “made the letters behave themselves”.  When we had got the first colour that helped best, we went on to the next layer.  After two or three more layers we all had a cup of tea and we sat there for about ten minutes before starting with another layer.  I later learned that tea is all part of the process to let the eye become accustomed to the colour.  When I was really comfortable, there were six different lenses blue tacked to my glasses.  We left my glasses there to be tinted and I went home in my spare pair.  The new ones would come in three weeks.  Three weeks!  Those three weeks were undoubtedly the worst in my life.  For, you see, the constant pain that I had lived with for so long, had been relieved for a few minutes, and thus I was aware of it, day upon day.  Then they came, the lenses had been tinted and I was allowed to wear them.  I came out of school and Mum said “They came today.  Put these on” and we drove home.  Those few moments were the best in my life.  “Wow, the fire station door is red!”  My beloved brother, ever cynical, said “Of course they are”. 

But it was never red like that.  That red was bright, and I couldn’t take my eyes away from them.   

Then came school.  The inevitable idiots who can’t resist a good joke, making stupid, inane comments.  But I didn’t care I was free, I could see, I could read, I could think, no effort.