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Hi Maria, Thank you for all you have done. From a teachers comment he has no hope, to a catch up class that he could no longer attend as he wasn’t making progress like the other kids. We made the decision to enrol at the Alison Lawson Clinic with Maria, at the start Riley could barely retain the alphabet let alone write all the letters correctly. Sounding out words was very basic and Riley struggled with his numbers. Each week we had the full support of Maria, nothing was rushed, each week we had small improvements. We followed all the homework and did as much at home as Riley could handle. We lived this program for the 10 weeks, but with all this hard work we have seen so much improvement in a short amount of time. This program has changed Riley’s life, he has so much more confidence and self esteem when it comes to his learning, not long into the program Riley was sighting and writing the alphabet and learning the correct sounds of the letters that now he can read and write in simple words. Within a couple of weeks Riley could count and write numbers 1 to 100. We still have a long way to go but Maria has given us the foundation and all the skills we need to continue at home, at our own pace. We are still working very hard and Riley is very willing to learn as the experience has been so positive and he knows how much progress he has made. Riley is now retaining sight words and sounding out words to read and write. Writing sentences is now a fun activity done with confidence. I’m very excited for Riley’s future and can’t wait for Riley to be able to walk back into Maria’s office and read his cat in the hat, Dr. Seuss book. Very proud Mum Hollie Balfour

July 13, 2025

I went through most of my schooling absolutely hating reading and writing and anything that involved either one (which is pretty much everything at school) I would do anything to avoid reading. I forgot to bring my books, couldn’t remember where they were, ‘lost’ quite a few. I did well in most areas of school, so most of my teachers just thought I was lazy; which was fine by me. I played up to it because it was better than them thinking I was dumb. It wasn’t until I was in year 11 that my Mum heard about the Alison Lawson Clinic. The description sounded just like me, trouble reading (I just didn’t), awful speller (nothing seemed to work), clumsy (if there was something to trip over, I tripped over it), bad hand-eye coordination (could never quite catch anything) and the list went on. She convinced me to go and get tested. I was exceptionally reluctant, but thought, hey it’s a day off school and it might make her stop bugging me.

It turned out I had dyslexia, which again worked well for me; now I had something to blame my laziness on. Much to my Mum’s disgust I flatly refused to have the treatment. At the time the clinic was in Moss Vale and I pretty much couldn’t be bothered. I didn’t want to have to miss out on stuff at school and just assumed that I was too old for it.

After a lot of persuasion and a little bit of bribery Mum managed to convince me that I should at least give it a shot. So, in very bad humour I started going once a week up to Moss Vale. About half way through the treatment, we were driving home and I suddenly noticed the clouds. They looked like they were sticking out of the sky, like I could actually reach out and grab them. I’d never seen anything like it. I pointed them out to Mum and she looked at me like I was insane, they didn’t look any different to her. Because my depth perception was improving I was finally able to see things in 3D. As soon as I got home I thought I’d test this theory and got out a magic eye book. I’d never been able to do them before and was secretly hoping that I still couldn’t, so that I could tell Mum that in fact nothing had changed and she was wrong. But my hopes were dashed when I saw a unicorn pop out of the page.

I now go to Melbourne Uni and am finishing my Primary Education degree with honors at the end of this year. I’m nowhere near as clumsy as I used to be, I trip over a lot less, and really enjoy playing ball sports, maybe that’s because I can catch now. I love reading (who would have thought?), and I can actually concentrate in lectures because I can follow the PowerPoints. Now that the words and letters stay in the one place, doing all the reading for uni isn’t that bad and it doesn’t take me as long as it would have a few years ago. I used to hate neon lights; it was always a struggle to know what they said, but not any longer. When I’m really tired I do still have a few issues with focusing my eyes, and I can tell they start to go off (I go a bit cross eyed), but the fact that I can even notice that happening is pretty impressive.

Amy July 12, 2015

Firstly, I would like to say how impressed I was with the programme that Aaron was guided through.  It was so comprehensive and all the support material was excellent.

Kelly is an extremely patient and dedicated lady, and her brilliant use of language, explanations and strategies she used to help Aaron were fantastic.  He really misses his consultations.

Aaron’s reading has improved hugely already and it has only been a couple of months since he finished his treatment.  He is a different child.  He comes home from school happy, singing to himself.  He is confident and engaged.  His teacher says he is more attentive in class and is putting his hand up and answering questions.  He is keeping up with his copying from the whiteboard now, this is something he really struggled with and rarely copied anything in time or correctly.  Now he is  one of the fastest in the class!  He continues to use the strategies Kelly taught us to continue to build on his  knowledge of words and spellings.  I cannot emphasise enough how this has changed our lives at home.

Aaron used to be a very angry, frustrated and upset little boy.  During holidays he would improve and then as soon as school started, after a couple of weeks he would deteriorate into a very sad, angry and unpleasant person to be around.  I realise now he was so overloaded and frustrated that he couldn’t read the words properly, so his brain was getting tired.  We had his eyes tested a couple of years before and they had said he had perfect vision.  He was so good at using other strategies to compensate for his eyes being weak, that no one ever picked up that he had a problem with his left eye.

Since going through the programme with Kelly, both eyes have strengthened and the problem with his left eye has gone.  Aaron explained to me, that now he can see the words properly, he understands why he found it so hard before.  But because he had always seen the letters that way, he didn’t know that there was anything wrong!

I am so glad I decided to get Aaron assessed.  I think Alison Lawson is an amazing lady – what an amazing programme.  There is so much talk about dyslexia and people don’t realise there is a cure!

April 12, 2015

Improved reading. Improved attitude to homework. I can definitely see an improvement. Laura says the words are now bigger on the page. I believe that I will continue to see improvement in Laura’s work due to The Alison Lawson treatment. I am very glad that we did this – money well spent.

Worth the effort and worth persevering with the homework. The investment will and has shown immediate dividends. Thanks Louisa.

April 12, 2015