Vision and Dyslexia Case Study

For years Sam and Paul Jones from Surrey suffered from an undetected eye condition that had a significant impact on their progress at school. Here, mum, Sue explains how she discovered that her two sons and husband all had the same disorder and why seeking professional help was the best thing she ever did.

"My two boys both attend a local independent junior school in Surrey. Sam, aged 9, the elder of the two is very creative and seems to have an amazing sense of balance - he was rollerblading at 5 and could ride a bike at 3 without any help from mum and dad. Although he is bright in some ways, Sam struggled at school. He has a poor attention span and always found reading very difficult.

Sam was identified as a child with potential learning difficulties and the school recommended that we sought help from an educational psychologist. I was horrified at the prospect of my young son being labelled and I initially rejected the idea of seeking help preferring to see if I could get to the root of the problem myself.

The school had tried everything they could to help Sam. No amount of extra lessons or varying teaching techniques seemed to make any difference to his progress. There were major concerns on the school's part that they could not support Sam without the specialist teaching he may require.

By this point, I was at my wit's end. I came across The Eye Academy by chance and decided it was worth seeing if they could help Sam.

After talking to Romana Hashim, ophthalmic director at Eye Academy, Sam underwent a comprehensive 2-hour vision assessment. I was a bit worried that Sam would find the whole experience rather stressful. However, Romana quickly put Sam at ease and made him feel very comfortable.

When Sam was first assessed he had a reading speed of around 40 words per minute. Romana detected a genetic eye condition known as convergence excess with accommodative insufficiency - basically, this means that the two eyes are not working together. The eye muscles become overactive which causes images to move around on the page when reading. As a consequence, Sam also has a reduced ability to focus at close hand which causes blurred vision.

Looking back on it now, I can see that a lot of Sam's problems stemmed from the fact that he could not actually see properly and this naturally hindered his ability to read.

I feel relieved that although we may not be able to change the data processing side of things - he is dyslexic and this has subsequently been confirmed by an educational psychologist - but at least we have been able to identify and resolve the bit we can fix - the underlying medical problem.

Sam now has a reading prescription and coloured filters which help rectify the problems he was experiencing. As a result, he has better concentration and his reading speed has improved by 55%.

Although Sam's younger brother Paul is not dyslexic, he does have the same genetic eye condition, albeit to a lesser degree. He too experienced some difficulties and would talk of seeing rainbow colours on the page when trying to read. However, this time when the dreaded D words were mentioned - dyslexia, dyspraxia and dyscalculia, I immediately knew what to do. We had Paul assessed in the same way and now he has also benefited from similar therapy. Although Paul has only been wearing his special glasses for a short while, he has improved his reading speed from 47 to 90 words per minute in less than six months.

Romana suggested that as my two boys both had the same condition, the chances are that their dad had it too. So my husband, who up until this year had never read a book in his entire life, also underwent the same assessment. Now he too wears the special glasses. After spending years wondering how I could derive so much enjoyment from reading, he has become a convert himself and during the family holiday this year, for the first time ever, he read two books from cover to cover.

So how does my experience leave me feeling? In general, I think there seems to be a lack of awareness of the vision problems that may affect a child and what impact such a condition may have on a child's ability to develop educationally. Some eye conditions are more prevalent in dyslexics and it would be beneficial if there was more awareness about these too. It is very easy to label children and to get an educational psychologist involved at the first indication that there may be something amiss. I feel very strongly that as well as an assessment with an educational psychologist the first step should also include a detailed vision assessment with a specialist optometrist.

Bringing in the expertise of a specialist has made a huge difference to my family and turned out to be the best decision I could have made. Both my children have significantly improved their reading skills and this has given them extra confidence which in turn affects them in so many different ways. My husband too is enjoying the pleasure of reading, so much so in fact that he has recently bought a Kindle!"