A ten-year-old girl who spent years struggling through three-hour homework battles and avoiding books has had her reading transformed, after a pair of colour-tinted glasses transformed the way she sees the written word forever.

Feared to be dyslexic, Sophia’s family were told by her school that a formal diagnosis would be lengthy and costly, and that without one, additional support such as extra time in exams could not be granted.

What nobody knew – including  Sophia herself - was that she was living with a condition called visual stress, where words and letters blur and jump on the page. She had simply assumed that was how everyone read.

Everything changed after her mother Siu (of the MyGlassesAndMe blog) met Kimberley Harrison, CEO of Cerium Visual Technologies, at a work event. Kimberley explained that visual stress is a condition that affects the way the brain processes visual information, making reading uncomfortable and often exhausting.

Symptoms - words that blur, move or jump on the page, headaches from black and white text, sensitivity to bright light - are often dismissed as laziness or confused with dyslexia, meaning many individuals never receive the help they need. Crucially, a standard eye test will not detect it. For Siu, it was a lightbulb moment.

Following a two-part specialist assessment, Sophia was prescribed a pair of precision-tinted purple lenses. The tint was identified using the Intuitive Colorimeter - a device that tests thousands of colour combinations to find the exact shade that works for each individual patient. As Kimberley explains: "Precision is key because even small deviations in hue or saturation can significantly alter the therapeutic effect of the lenses for some patients.”

The difference was almost immediate. Homework that had once taken three hours was done in 45 minutes, Roald Dahl's Matilda was read from cover to cover, and Sophia is now on track to exceed expectations in her Year 6 reading SATs - something Siu describes as unimaginable just twelve months ago.

"A year ago, I would never have believed we would be here," says Siu. "Her reading, her spelling, her confidence - everything has changed. And to think it all started with a conversation at a work event.”

Kimberley says stories like Sophia’s are a reminder of how many children are still waiting for answers. "These are bright, capable children who are being written off as reluctant readers or pushed towards diagnoses that may not be the full picture," she says.

"Many people with visual stress have never been diagnosed, yet a simple assessment could change everything for them - just like it did for Siu and Sophia.”

For most families, finding that same answer remains the challenge. Visual stress is not routinely tested for in a standard eye examination and is not always picked up in schools - meaning thousands of children who could be helped are instead being referred for costly assessments or simply left to struggle.

"For schools, the challenge is that the system is already stretched," says Siu. "When a child is struggling with reading, the immediate focus is often on dyslexia assessments, funding and waiting lists - and that can take time that children simply don’t have. Visual stress is not widely known about in education, and it is not part of standard testing, which means it can easily be missed. But for some children, it could be the missing piece of the puzzle.”

Siu adds: "I just want schools and parents to know that it exists. Ask your child if the words jump around when they read. That one question could open a door that changes their life.”

To find a Cerium specialist near you, visit ceriumvistech.com