• Prof John Stein & Dr Sue Fowler founded the Dyslexia Research Trust (DRT) in 1995 to investigate the brain mechanisms underlying visual reading difficulties.

• Successful reading starts with seeing print properly. We discovered that more than half of all children with problems learning to read had visual symptoms such as letters moving about, blurring, going double, giving them headaches or problems with visual attention and concentration. Children seldom report such confusions unless they are actually asked about what they see when they’re looking at words

• Years of research into the way coloured light can affect the way the brain processes visual information has led us to develop our special blue and yellow filters. The colour of light alters the way the brain processes visual information, and thus the filters can alleviate symptoms, making it easier to learn to read and spell. Adults, University and College Students who suffer from these kinds of problems can still be helped even at this later stage

•Every child is different, so we concentrate on discovering their individual strengths and weaknesses and developing treatment programmes tailored to their particular needs to help them reach their full potential.

• Through our medical science based clinics we can help people, often without charge, with the whole range of learning difficulties - including dyslexia, dyspraxia, ADHD, ADD and ASD– all of which can affect the normal process of learning to read, write and spell. Often therefore, we can help them all

• Although we can “screen” for dyslexia we don’t make a formal diagnosis of this or any other associated conditions. Such assessments take several hours and these labels do not help us to develop the best treatment plan for each person

• Our research has generated over 100 highly cited scientific papers published in Journals such as Nature, Science, Brain, Proc. Royal Society, Proc. US Nat. Ac. Sci.

• Since the start of our research we’ve been able to help over 10,000 children and adults to overcome their visual problems, improve their reading and spelling and allow them to reach their potential.

What We Do

We see any child over the age of six years old with reading or general learning difficulties and concern over their academic progress, particularly those with visual symptoms. We started primarily as a visual clinic - but this is now just a starting point as we have developed our research based on the understanding of how blue and yellow light affects the processing of visual and other information within the brain. Specifically, blue light can also improve migraine headaches, attention and sleep, whilst yellow light can increase contrast sensitivity and the control of scanning and convergence eye movements.

When people come for their appointment, we assess the following:

• Background history of general health, development of language, memory and motor control, together with details of family history of similar problems or migraine.

• Visual acuity for near and distant targets and clarity of text.

• The way the eyes work together, for 3D vision and the binocular control of the eye movement systems involved in reading

• Visual symptoms, headaches and concentration when reading.

• Effect of blue and yellow filters on symptoms and their reading. If appropriate we provide these.

• As part of our research we use a shortened version of the BAS 3 test to give us a base line against which we can monitor progress in single word reading and spelling in relation to age and ability together with immediate auditory recall/memory (for those under the age of 18).

Results and management advice are given on the day of the appointment and later in a detailed written report.

We usually see the children again 3 and 6 months later to monitor/track their progress.

FORTHCOMING EVENTS