One of the best elements of my job is that I get to work with 'exceptional' learners - those who respond to information and/or the environment differently. I love working with these students because they challenge me to be better, to read more, and to sleuth out the newest and greatest strategies in our field. Oftentimes these come from colleagues and professional development courses, but some of the best information I have has come to me by chance. Today's post is about one of those random, yet revolutionizing, moments, compliments of one of our parents here at NTA...
One of our students recently has begun sporting purple glasses in class, compliments of a new diagnosis from an Irlen Eye Test. The student had struggled with reading for many years, and manifested symptoms of AD/HD. Without getting too technical, it turns out that students with Irlen Syndrome perceive the reading environment differently; though the exact cause is unknown, a simple light-filtering lens can completely change the words on the page (hence the coloured glasses). For our student, it means that words no longer jump around the page when he wears his glasses - and boy, has there been a drastic change to both attention and reading skills!
More and more, we are becoming aware of perceptual issues that are affecting students - whether in their hearing or sight. It is tough to identify these issues because they often present as learning disabilities - we simply don't see or hear what the student is hearing, so we do not know that it is different. I would encourage anyone with a struggling student to thoroughly investigate hearing and sight issues - as we have seen firsthand, it can be a liberating experience!
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