Meares-Irlen Syndrome Analysis

As kids you always learn that some words are just bad to say publicly, but I’ve always embraced being a four-eyed pridester! Though pridester isn’t exactly a real word, it encompasses all the joy that having an extra set of eyes brings to me daily. However, this journey hasn’t always been easy and glasses can get in the way of daily life. Let’s start with not having glasses equipped with wiper blades. Do you know the angst that I feel every time my glasses become covered with a smoky smog during the winter, summer and rainy days. I go from utilizing four eyes to being visually impaired. And let’s not talk about how many times someone wants to try on your glasses. Like hello? I do need these things so that I won’t run into a wall. Also, let’s not get me started on the cleaning process. Every two seconds I’m breathing onto my lenses with a strong dragon-like breath to wipe them with my t-shirt, blouse, or even my grandma’s hanky. Can you say exhausting? And grandma

     Dyslexia is a disorder in which someone has difficulty reading, which is not caused from a

Could orange colored lenses dictate my future? Would they change the way my friends see me? Would they help me get through high school and into college? These are just a few questions I found myself struggling with seven years ago. In fourth grade while reading audibly, my teacher noticed I might have a reading disability. As I skipped lines, mixed up words, and even confused words as others, my teacher discussed the concern with my parents. Were there eye problems, was it dyslexia or a learning disorder? Being that all of these conditions were checked, with no conclusive answer, we only knew I was behind on my reading and comprehension skills.

Dyslexia is a neurological condition that affects ≈15% of the world's population (Ramus et. al, 2013). It is defined as a difficulty in learning to read or interpret words, letters, and other symbols (Pauc, 2015). This disability is associated with struggles in reading-related tasks such as word identification and spelling in spite of normal intelligence, adequate education and motivation to read proficiently (Ma et.al, 2014). People with dyslexia possess difficulties in taking notes, writing essays, finishing letters or reports, and showing their level of understanding in exams. The right hemisphere is impaired in a dyslexic's brain, which is responsible for speech and reading, and because of this, they have to rely on the left

Shaywitz, S. & Shaywitz, B. (2005). Dyslexia (Specific Reading Disability). Biological Psychiatry, 57(11), 1301-1309. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2005.01.043

My inspiration for wanting to become an optometrist was jump-started by my aunt Rosemary. My aunt suffers from dry macular degeneration, and she first started losing her eyesight when I was about five years old. I have always been close to her, and I have seen her vision deteriorate. Today she can see peripherally. I have watched as she lost her driving privileges and was forced into an early retirement. I always viewed my aunt's condition without an appreciation of how lucky I truly was to have normal vision. However, In the summer of 2002 I visited an optometrist for the first time. Since that first visit to the optometrist 13 years ago, my eyesight has drastically deteriorated. I currently have a correction factor of -7.25 in my right eye, and a correction factor of -8.0 in my left eye. My vision has stabilized, but my high correction power, coupled with observing my aunt's macular degeneration, allowed me to understand that the gift of vision may not be an everlasting gift. I want to do my best to help people make the best of what may not be an enduring attribute of their lives.

Dyslexia refers to a specific difficulty in learning to read and write. However this is not the only difficulty that children with dyslexia experience and there are variations of their symptoms. These problems appear to stem from fundamental difficulties in the rapid processing and sequencing of phonological information in short term memory. These children also have difficulties with associations with letters and their sounds. Learning their left from right also is difficult. In the

So I went and met with my whole family. My cousin had just come in from New Jersey, and I was excited to see him. Over mashed potatoes and the smell of turkey cooking, the subject of my glasses came up, probably provoked by my pupils which were still enormous. We joked about it, and talked about the scores of geeks, famous people, and world changers that had glasses. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Teddy Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Harry Potter, John Lennon, Elton John, Mohandas Gandhi all wore glasses. These were the people that I aspired to be like, that I looked up to, that I thought were amazing. I would be joining their ranks! And so, I wasn’t

The term “dyslexia” was first introduced in 1887 by Dr. Rudolf Berlin when he suggested that difficulty with reading may be caused by “cerebral disease instead of brain injury” (Hennigh 1995).

The National Centre for Learning Disabilities says that dyslexia is a neurological and often genetic condition, and not the result of poor teaching, instruction or upbringing. Dyslexia is a specific reading disability due to a defect in the brain's processing of graphic symbols according to the MNT Knowledge Centre. It is a learning disability that alters the way the brain processes written material. It is typically characterized by difficulties in word recognition, spelling and decoding. People with dyslexia have problems with reading comprehension.

Dyslexia is a lifelong condition that implicates a person's reading ability, caused by a defect in the brain where it has difficulty in processing graphic symbols. Also referred to as a “reading disorder” or a “reading disability”, Dyslexia can also affect a person's writing, spelling and even speaking ability.

According to Chall (1983) the primary deficit associated with dyslexia is phonological awareness and there are three symptoms; Inaccurate and inefficient single word recognition, Difficulty sounding out (decoding) unfamiliar words, and Inaccurate spelling that is the result of it. As a result of phonological deficit, students with dyslexia exhibit slow and inaccurate text reading, poor reading comprehension, varied difficulties with the symbol code for reading and

When I was in the second grade, I was having an extremely hard time reading. After several different tests, I was diagnosed with dyslexia. Dyslexia is just a general term for disorders that involves difficulty in learning to read or interpret words, letters,and other symbols, but that does not affect general intelligence.

Of the three previously mentioned diseases, Dyslexia impairs a person’s ability to read, write, and spell (NINDS 2003). Although they are of normal intelligence, their reading level is below average. They will usually have “trouble with phonological processing (the manipulation of sounds) and/or rapid visual-verbal responding.” (NINDS 2003). Children with dyslexia complain they cannot read their textbooks, do not have enough time to finish tests, cannot take notes, and are unable to read their own handwriting (GVSU 2000). Dyslexia does not affect every person the same way, and signs of the disorder may not be prevalent until later, when grammar and more in-depth writing skills are introduced. Dyslexia can also create a difficulty in processing vocabulary and thoughts correctly when speaking, and understanding what one says when they are spoken to. Dysgraphia is another neurological disorder that focuses on writing. When a child with this disorder is first introduced to writing, they will make unnecessary spaces between their letters, and some letters will be

Hinshelwood (1917) – First physician to advocate specific instructional approach for written language disorder called “word blindness”