The ideas of Irlen syndrome are pseudoscientific and not supported by scientific evidence,[1][2][3] and its treatment has been described as a health fraud that takes advantage of vulnerable people.
[6] In 1980, New Zealand teacher Olive Meares described the visual distortions some individuals reported when reading from white paper.
In 1983, while working under a federal research grant at the California State University of Long Beach, American psychologist Helen Irlen thought that through the use of either colored overlays or spectral filters (worn as glasses) that would filter the visual information before it reaches the brain could enable the brain to correctly process the visual information it received.
Similar symptoms were described separately by Meares and Irlen, each unaware of the other's work.
[citation needed] Early studies investigating Irlen syndrome as a treatable condition have been criticized for taking a biased and subjective approach to the research.