How do you think you would cope, if every time you sat down to read, after a few minutes, the words started to float off the page? It would be very disconcerting wouldn’t it? Sometimes the words float right off the page, for other people, the words float up and down off the page (like waves).
There are people who see words behaving like this every time that they sit down to read. These people have a visual processing issue known as Irlen Syndrome.
Sometimes this distortion makes them feel nauseas, a bit like sea-sickness. There are some children who constantly feel sick at school, and often spend a lot of time in sick-bay. They are often not believed when they say they are sick, and that is understandable, as it is often every day, and there is no obvious cause for the sickness.
BUT… these kids really are feeling sick, but don’t know why and nobody else knows why, so they are told that they just have to get on with it. If you know of anyone (particularly children) who seem to be sick at school a lot of the time, without any explanation, it may be worth investigating Irlen Syndrome.
Adults who have suffered with this issue their whole life often develop coping mechanisms as they get older and once they are able to read they do not notice these distortions as much. If they do not notice them then they do not experience the same levels of nausea they might have experienced while at school.
You can take the self-test to determine if your child, or even yourself might have Irlen Syndrome and benefit from Irlen glasses.
