“ Of thirty-seven people with visual perception problems in the study, thirty-one were helped by the colored sheets. (And they helped fifty-eight out of seventy people tested in my private practice). For each individual helped, certain colors could make things better but other colors could make things worse. But for each person helped, there was one color that worked best. After everyone had determined and used their own optimal color, they reported they were able to read better and longer.”
Irlen (1991). Reading by the Colors: Overcoming dyslexia and other reading disabilitie s through the Irlen Method, p. 22.
“In the 1991 Livingstone study, the authors found “abnormalities in the magnocellular, but not their
parvocellular layers.”
Livingstone, Rosen, Drislane, & Galaburda (1991). Physiological and anatomical evidence for a magnocellular defect
in developmental dyslexia, Neurobiology, 88, p. 7943. (Note: Scientists have identified two visual pathways in the brain.
Each carries different types of information: the magnocellular pathway carries fast, low contrast information, and the
parvocellular pathway carries slow, high contrast information. Visual dyslexics appear to have difficulty processing fast,
low contrast information.)
“The findings of the Livingstone study suggest that dyslexia might be caused by the improper timing of visual circuits in the brain, and lends theoretical support to the use of colored filters in treating dyslexia. Prior to this study, most scientists believed that dyslexia was purely a language problem. An easy-to-read version of the findings of the Livingstone study is available in an article by Blakeslee (1991).”
Carbo (2007). Becoming a great teacher of reading: Achieving high rapid reading gains with powerful differentiated strategies, p. 161.
“In experimenting with colored filters, a prominent university researcher [Livingstone, et al, 1971] found that reading through specific filters made many children read better.”
Blakeslee (September 15, 1991). The New York Times, pp. 1, 30-31.
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