Irlen & Meares-Irlen explained
During the late 1970’s as Director of a learning disability program at California State University Helen Irlen established the existence of print distortions amongst 1500 adults.
Following a research project, the claims by Irlen were that: prior to treatment most clients experienced strain and frustration after 15-20 minutes of reading, with Irlen filters reading period extended to 2 to 3 hours.
In the early 1990's Arnold Wilkins, Head of Visual Perception Unit at University of Essex, discovered beneficial reports of the use of colour for reading difficulties. He therefore invented the Intuitive Colorimeter and used the instrument to carry out his research.
Olive Meares was the first to suggest that the perception of print by some reading-disabled children was influenced by the visual characteristics of the text. As a teacher at a New Zealand reading clinic in the 1950’s Meares realised that the brightness contrast of black-on-white print is a major contributory factor to the reading difficulties of some children.
Olive Meares made no attempt to:
- to categorize visual distortions
- to develop screening instruments to be able to identify those with the subtype of perceptual processing deficits
- to develop a testing protocol to determine the accurate colour to be used as overlays
- to develop or use colored lenses with her students preferring to use only a limited range tinted Perspex overlays
The name Meares was added to that of Helen Irlen by Arnold Wilkins. Helen Irlen sees this as:
"An attempt to marginalize my involvement by adding Meares’ name.There has never been a personal link between Arnold Wilkins and Olive Meares."
Find out more by downloading our Irlen & Meares - Irlen Explained document.
Case Study:
Amanda
University student Amanda recently saw James for a full Irlen lens evaluation. She did not feel her Cerium lenses were producing any benefit and had little confidence in the Cerium examination process.
Contact James
Contact James with any questions you may have or for an informal chat about Irlen. You can contact him on:
t: 01536 761597
e: billettjames@hotmail.com
Online enquiry form
Downloads
Irlen & Meares - Irlen Explained
Further Information
Further information about Irlen Syndrome can be found at www.irlen.com
Please note that opticians and organisations other than Irlen Clinics have no connection with Helen Irlen, or the Irlen Institute and do not use the Irlen method.
