By Katie Scarvey
kscarvey@salisburypost.com
Sarah Stoops of Cooleemee had gotten to the point where she didn’t know what to do to help her daughter.
Now 8, Allissa Stoops was plagued with severe headaches. When her class started to learn how to read, the headaches became worse and would sometimes get so bad Allissa would throw up.
When a tumor was ruled out by an MRI, Allissa was prescribed medicine for migraines.
Sarah, however, wasn’t content to leave the matter at that. If her daughter did have migraines, Sarah wanted to know what triggered them.
For a year, she wrote down Allissa’s activities and recorded everything she ate, all in an attempt to find some kind of pattern to the headaches.
When Allissa continued to struggle with reading, vision tests revealed that she had 20-20 vision. There was no detectable problem with her eyes.
But still, Sarah was mystified by Allissa’s behavior, like the way she avoided lights.
“I’d say, ‘Cut the light on, Allissa,” Sarah said.
Sunlight also bothered Allissa; in fact, she would often tell her mother that she was “allergic” to the sun.
Sarah says at first she dismissed that statement, but she finally asked Allissa why she felt she was allergic to the sun.
“Because it makes my eyes and my head hurt so bad,” Allissa told her.
Sarah continued to worry about her daughter’s performance in school. Allissa’s problems with reading didn’t make sense, since Sarah knew that her daughter was bright and otherwise learned quickly.
“I was praying,” Sarah says. “Lord, something’s gotta be wrong. I didn’t know what to do.”
Then, in one of those inexplicably fortuitous occurrences, she met Randy Cannon.
As a nursing assistant, Sarah goes into people’s homes as a caregiver. That’s how she met Randy’s mother, Ruby Cannon.
Although Sarah says that talking to clients about personal lives is discouraged in her job, it’s bound to happen when people get to know one another, she says.
When Ruby heard about the problems Sarah’s daughter was having, she told Sarah they sounded similar to those of her adult son, Randy.
Sarah then met Randy, who told her about Irlen Syndrome, a visual processing disorder. He gave her some information about it, including a book and DVD. Randy had only recently ó at age 54 ó learned about Irlen Syndrome, after a lifetime of struggling with it.
As Sarah read about tinted glasses and overlays, she was skeptical.
Still, she decided she had nothing to lose, so she drove to the Dollar Tree.
“I bought all different sunglasses: purple, brown, every color I could find,” she says.
Allissa remembers that day well. When she tried on the pair with brown lenses, her world changed.
“Everything’s not fuzzy anymore,” she told her mother.
Sarah took Allissa to Randy and Dr. Terry Cassell for testing and consultation.
Allissa described how when she tried to read, words would float off the page and swirl around in circles.
They confirmed that Allissa did have Irlen Syndrome, and sent her to an Irlen specialist. Allissa now wears glasses with a tint customized for her vision problems. She also uses colored overlays when she reads.
Now, Allissa no longer has headaches, and words stay where they’re supposed to be on the page. She also has a better sense of balance now, which means she’s able to ride a bike.
Her teachers have noticed a difference as well.
The first day she wore her new glasses, Allissa was able to copy material off the whiteboard, which had been impossible for her before. As her reading improved, her grades improved as well.
Allissa is relieved that her horrible headaches are gone.
“Reading is pretty easy now,” she says. “When I was little, my head was hurting all the time, and I couldn’t really pay attention.”
Without Randy, Sarah is pretty sure Allissa would still be struggling.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that the Lord put him in our way,” Sarah says.
Although Randy’s life has improved since he realized he has Irlen Syndrome, he struggled for many years unaware that there was help available for his condition.
He’d suffered from excruciating headaches, double vision and balance problems his whole life.
He recalls getting whipped as a boy for making faces at his mother. “Making faces” meant squinting one eye, in his case.
After visits to an eye doctor, he was incorrectly diagnosed with what is commonly called “lazy eye.”
He finally learned about Irlen Syndrome when he met Pat Phillips, the wife of his parents’ pastor. An associate dean at Davidson County Community College, she gave him an Irlen pre-screening test, which led to later tests that determined he was suffering severely from Irlen Syndrome.
He was 54 when he found out.
Randy now wears glasses with four layers of tints ó two purple, one gray, and one blue. His quality of life has improved immensely, he says.
Now, as an Irlen consultant, he wants to make sure that others get the help they need.
What is Irlen Syndrome?
Many people, including pediatricians and vision care professionals, are unfamiliar with Irlen Syndrome, which used to be known as Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome.
The disorder is thought to be a problem with the brain’s ability to process visual information.
The syndrome is difficult to diagnose because its symptoms are similar to those of Attention Deficit Disorder, including problems with behavior, attention and concentration.
Those with Irlen Syndrome are often medicated for ADHD when they don’t need to be, says Dr. Terry Cassell, a counselor with Jabez Family Outreach who got involved with Irlen pre-screening after seeing what the Irlen Method had done for Randy, a long-time friend.
Symptoms of the disorder may include:
– poor reading comprehension
– misreading words
– problems tracking words on the page
– double vision
– words “swimming” or “jumping off the page”
– light sensitivity, especially to bright sunlight or fluorescent lights
– eye strain
– watery eyes
– fatigue
– headaches
– balance problems
– depth perception problems
Irlen Syndrome is named for Helen Irlen, an educational psychologist who came up with a screening method as well as a remedy for the condition.
According to the Irlen philosophy, tinted eyeglasses and color transparencies can correct the faulty eye-to-brain signal. It is believed that a small part of the color spectrum causes the brain to distort information. Precision eyeglasses tints and color overlays help selectively filter out the problematic part of the spectrum.
By some estimates, 12 percent of those with learning disorders actually have Irlen Syndrome, which tends to run in families.
Irlen screening is now done in thousands of schools across the country, although some medical professionals remain skeptical about the science behind the syndrome.
If you are interested in Irlen screening for you or your child, you may attend one of the following screening sessions run by Dr. Terry Cassell and Randy Cannon:
– 6:30-8 p.m. Monday, April 20, at the Rowan Public Library
– 1:30-3 p.m. Saturday, April 25, at the J.F. Hurley Family YMCA.
For more information, call Dr. Terry L. Cassell, executive director of counseling for Jabez Family Outreach, at (704) 636-1415. You can also find more information at www.irlen.com.