“Why Is She Lying On Her HEAD to Read?”

…Page’s father asked when he brought her to us.

He had been the main one responsible for listening to her read her readers after school, and he was at a complete loss to understand why she couldn’t sit still and often needed to read lying upside down, and how she could trip over the same easy word 3 times on the same page.

When we looked at the page in question, we realised that the word was in 3 different places in the sentences in which it appeared. The first time was at the start of the sentence, the second time in the middle of the sentence, while the last one was at the end of the sentence. When we asked Page about this, she replied that she thought that they looked like different words – and that she sometimes needed to move around so she could see it properly.

Page’s experience of Visual Processing Disorder made the same word look different depending on whatever else was around it. After she was assessed and got her glasses, she found that the same word looked the same – no matter where it was.

Now she didn’t need to fidget and move around all the time just to read. But reading lying upside down was still kind of fun anyway…

“It makes my brain wake up…”

Obviously intelligent, detailed and social, James used to struggle to concentrate for prolonged periods in school. His teachers did not understand why he could be right on point sometimes, then inexplicably fall in a heap at other times. Sometimes, he would even go to sleep during class, and sleep so deeply that once, the teacher called the school nurse because he would not wake up.

At a loss to understand why this was happening, his parents brought him to us, and discovered that he suffered from Visual Processing Disorder. When the right tint combination was discovered during the lens assessment process, he said “it makes my brain wake up”.

James was introduced to his new normal. In the process, he articulated what we have known for a long time: Visual Processing Disorder causes a sufferer’s brain to work overtime doing tasks that the rest of us find simple and easy. Brains suffering from Visual Processing Disorder can only do this for a short time before they get exhausted – and check out, disengage, or like James – literally go to sleep.

If James sounds like someone you know, give us a call on  (03) 8812 7616 because we would love to help them discover their new normal.