Dyslexia: Playing with the mind

It started with a desire to help his severely dyslexic daughter; now Wynford Dore is being hailed as a revolutionary in the field of treating dyslexia. But can a couple of bean bags and a few simple exercises really help those with learning difficulties? Hilary Wilce finds out

Millionaire businessman Wynford Dore says he has developed a treatment that can "transform the lives" of people with dyslexia and associated learning difficulties. He doesn't quite claim it's a cure, but he does say that it is a giant leap forward in the treatment of these problems, and one that will change the fortunes of millions of people, and save society an enormous amount of money in the process.

A year ago such grandiose claims were causing him trouble. Granada Television ran a breathlessly enthusiastic item about his treatment programme – known as Dyslexia, Dyspraxia and Attention Treatment, or DDAT – and was then forced to apologise for not giving a more tempered view.

But research is about to be published that adds weight to Dore's startling claims. A small-scale study done at Balsall Common Primary School, in Warwickshire, shows that 36 children given the DDAT programme made wide-ranging gains. After a year, they had improved their reading age by more than three times compared with the previous year, their comprehension by almost five times, and their writing skills by a staggering 17 times. "I've been a head for 22 years and I've seen a lot of dyslexic children getting nowhere," says head Trevor Davis, "but with this there have been multiple improvements. One child who was not predicted to do at all well at SATs, got Level Fives across the board."

The treatment is based on simple exercises which stimulate the brain. They are done at home, for just 10 minutes morning and evening, with nothing more complicated than a bean bag, and the programme usually lasts for about eight to nine months. However the first results can appear within weeks, and the exercises seem to work just as well for adults as for children.

The implications of this, Dore points out, are stupendous. This is a simple and relatively inexpensive way of tackling problems that affect up to 20 per cent of the population, and that not only cause individual frustration and failure, but also cost society millions in providing remedial learning and dealing with the problems that can follow in their wake – about three quarters of all prisoners, for example, have some sort of learning difficulty.

It all sounds too good to be true, and critics in the dyslexia world have been quick to urge caution. Dore's methods are not new, they say, and anyway it is too early to know exactly who is helped by his programme, and whether the improvement is sustained over time. The British Dyslexia Association and the Dyslexia Institute recently issued a decidedly downbeat statement on DDAT saying that more research is needed, and that "if successful, this type of provision could complement, but not replace, established dyslexia educational provision".

But Dore is dismissive. "People who make their living out of building wheelchairs are never going to like the person who teaches people to walk," he says.

His mission started 10 years ago when the problems of his severely dyslexic daughter Susan had made her suicidal. His own field was the steel industry but, undeterred by his lack of educational expertise, he set off on the trail of research. This led him to the work of an American expert, Harold Levinson, who believes the root cause of many learning difficulties is the under-functioning of the cerebellum, a small area at the base of the brain, which controls fine movements and processes sensory information. (See Independent Education, 1 June, 2000) For a dyslexic, says Dore, this is like having a computer held up by a poorly functioning modem, or a car engine hampered by a faulty clutch. However, he disliked the drug regime that Levinson recommended, and instead got medical experts to devise exercises to "kick start" this part of the brain.

His daughter was a successful guinea pig. Once upon a time she struggled to read a sentence – now she works as a classroom assistant helping children to learn to read. And the programme took off. Dore opened his first clinic in Kenilworth less than three years ago. He now has 10,000 people going through eight UK centres, and has also opened up in Australia and the USA. At every one, clients are beating a path to the door.

One person who made that journey was paediatrician Adam Tilly, whose 11-year-old son was severely dyslexic and dyspraxic. Within a few months of DDAT therapy Tilly knew things were changing. "We used to run up and down throwing a rugby ball, or rather I'd throw it and he'd miss it and we'd stop and he'd pick it up. Then one day we were halfway down the field and he caught it. I stopped in amazement. I couldn't believe it. I said, 'You caught that!'"

There were other things, too. "He actually asked his grandmother if he could read to her. And he wrote a whole paragraph, where, before, getting even a line of writing out of him was painful."

Tilly was so impressed he joined the programme as a doctor and now works in London and Bedford screening clients and tailoring their individualised exer- cise programmes.

"My son's still dyslexic," he says. "It isn't a cure. But what this does is make his processing easier, make his responses better, and make his learning easier." It has also hugely improved his assertiveness and self-confidence, he says.

Dore says this is typical. "We take on about 90 per cent of people who get in touch, and 95 per cent of those see significant results. And not just with reading and writing. We've been amazed at the way the programme improves things like sporting abilities and self-esteem."

The Balsall study was carried out by David Reynolds, a professor of education at Exeter University and former chair of the Government's numeracy task force, and Roderick Nicolson, a professor of psychology at Sheffield University. It is about to be published in the journal Dyslexia. They recommend larger-scale research to confirm early findings about DDAT.

Critics point out that both academics have had some connection with Dore's work. But they are well-respected in their fields, and there is already plenty of evidence that exercise treatments can improve brain function. Some therapists have been using such treatments for years. Another exercise-based research project, run by Sally Goddard Blythe, of the Institute of Neuro-Physiological Psychology in Chester, with a class of eight-year-olds in Birmingham, has shown similarly good results.

Theories differ about why, but many think that learning difficulties reflect immature balance and co-ordination functions that need to be stimulated with exercises that mimic the early stages of infancy – research indicates that some children with learning difficulties may have missed out on the crawling stage as babies.

But it is DDAT, with its hard-hitting advertisements and unconditional claims, that is exciting public attention and causing people to queue round the block for Dore's £1,500 treatment. Inevitably this raises questions about his motives – questions that make him extremely angry.

Rather than making money from DDAT, he says, he has been throwing "millions and millions" into it. His future plans include devoting 10 per cent of the organisation's resources to research, and looking into developing lighter, cheaper and easier testing equipment to bring costs down and make the treatment more widely available.

"I'm not hell-bent on opening clinics. I'm hell-bent on solving problems. We've started taking people with attention deficit disorder, we're working with a group of prisoners, and 21 local education authorities are talking to us now."

He wants to stay commercial, he says, for the freedom it gives him, but in the cautious world of remedial education such attitudes always rouse suspicions.

"I'm delighted that for some people it works," says Peter Blythe, founder of the INPP, "but he doesn't say how many kids are falling out of his programme, and he doesn't say whether the gains will be around in two years' time. He doesn't credit all the people who've sweated blood to develop these things before him. He's marketing it like soap powder. He says it washes whiter than white. He doesn't say it works on some clothes better than others. He doesn't say it'll make some clothes whiter than the rest. He just says 'Put your sunglasses on, girl, this is going to blind you!'"

'I didn't think it would: now I'm convinced'

DDAT's latest centre opened last year in a converted chapel in west London, and 16-year-old Edward Collins and his mother Beverley sit in a reception room talking about their conversion.

"I had two children in prep school," says Beverley, a former teacher who now runs a private fostering agency. "One was reading fluently at five. The other – Edward – didn't know one end of a letter from another."

From the start Edward's school life was a question of struggling with reading and writing, developing avoidance strategies like spending time in the toilets, and having endless additional tutoring – to little effect.

When Beverley saw a programme about DDAT on television she dragged him off to the nearest centre – then Southampton – to have a go. "I can understand people being sceptical," she says. "But what I thought was: 'It can't do any harm.' And I'll go anywhere if it will make Edward better."

"I didn't think it would do anything for me," admitted Edward, a veteran of dyslexia therapies. "I thought it was just another of those stupid things. But now I'm totally convinced."

After having his balance tested, his eye co-ordination looked at, and various tests made of his abilities, he started a programme of daily exercises, juggling bean bags and following other balance and co-ordination routines.

Quite quickly he began to see and feel changes. He has, he says, calmed down a lot, isn't forgetting things as much, and finds concentrating in class easier. Beverley sees differences in how readily he now sits down and concentrates on his homework, the decrease in his ceaseless fidgeting, and the drop-off in "panicky phone calls" from school, when he had forgotten things. "I feel we're seeing light at the end of the tunnel."

But, above all, she rejoiced in hearing one of his teachers say, "We would love to have your son for A-level."

"It was the first time ever I'd come out of parents' evening for Edward having heard anything like that! I can't tell you what it felt like."

More information available from: www.ddat.co.uk; tel: 0870 7370017

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