The Dore Achievement Centres / DDAT are very good at promoting themselves but their high visibility and impressive claims (e.g. a success rate of 90% or more) does open them up for negative stories to appear in the press. For example: Mother queries dyslexic ‘cure’ and here BBC Wales is specifically looking for people for whom the treatment hasn’t worked. A quick Google for personal experiences brings up a few hits (here, here and here).
I would like to gather a comprehensive collection of experiences of people who have been through some or all of the DDAT or any other program. So good or bad, please email your experience to Myomancy.com.
Taken from http://www.dyslexiatalk.com:
Hi Stella,
My son and I looked into DDAT and Davis extensively before deciding to go ahead with the Davis. In his words, “why would I bother to do exercises for six months when I can learn the same thing with Davis work in a week.”
Actually, the DDAT doesn’t go into all areas ie they do exercises to correct balance and that is supposed to carry over into reading.
Davis addresses the perceptual inaccuracies and teaches explicitly the skills needed for reading or other areas that are particular to that person.
My son now doesn’t fall over through sport, reads well for pleasure and writes as quickly as anyone in his class.
Cheers,
Heidi
Link to original posting.
http://www.dyslexiatalk.com/messages/5/3284.shtml
Link to a brief comment on their experience with DDAT:
http://www.sokar.org.uk/html/dyslexia.html
Hi
Me and my son spent c24 months on the DDAT program. I am supposed to be cured and it has had no effect.
I am trying to get my money back off them – but thye are not interested.
My son, oh yes after 24 months of excercises he is still reversing his letters & numbers.
If you want to join me and get your back email me at tm.casey@ntlworld.com
My son was in the Dore program for about 14 months. 5 months into the program, he took the yearly state standardized school tests in 8th grade. His 7th grade scores were very typical and concerning throughout his schooling years up to that point. His national scores: reading 10% ; language 51%. His 8th grade tests revealed quite an unexpected leap in his national scores: reading 62% and language 72%. Actual reading scores went form 474 (“Approaches”) to 551 (well within the “Meets” performance level. Writing scores went from 574 to 581, which jumped to the upper level of “Meets” level. From his further performance and abilities he has demonstrated post-Dore, I no longer have a concern at all for him regarding the comprehension, verbal or written fluency, or reading recall issues that he has always held in the past.
All those links seem to be ‘not found’ or otherwise unavailable?
DORE have an annoying habit of taking legal action against people who want to talk about negative experiences with them. This has included parent groups, not just researchers.
I hope that your links have not been shut down, and that you aren’t prevented from posting less-than-positive ‘testimonials’, but since DORE rely so heavily on testimonials they will use legal threats to prevent anything negative being published. I know this sounds paranoid, but I have seen some of the legal letters.
BTW, if you have had less-than-fantastic experiences with DORE and would like to talk about them in public to help other people who may be considering DORE decide whether it is for them, I’d strongly recommend setting up an anonymous blog (WordPress is my favourite & quite easy to use). You could also try emailing Ben Goldacre, a UK journalist who has covered DORE several times & has access to a big newspaper’s legal team http://www.badscience.net/?page_id=2 . Unfortunately, writing about them under your own name may well land you with threatening lawyer’s letters delivered to your home, as happened to one of my professors.
(BTW, sorry for lack of online-ness recently, Finals are keeping me rather busy!).
Duck, what legal papers or whatnot have you seen regarding negativity with parent groups, or is that just your own opinion?
If any group or individual is pursued by Dore legally, the likely cause is that they have committed something that is probably illeagal, slandering, damaging, false, etc, or they would not be pursued in the first place. There are a few groups, some of whom you are associated with, Duck, that have a loss for Dore’s success.
‘Academics typically argue such disagreements in the pages of scientific journals. However, people who criticize this training program in public may hear from the company’s lawyers. Max Coltheart, then president of the Specific Learning Disabilities Association of New South Wales, received such a letter after his organization posted links on its website to comments on the Dore program from the British Dyslexia Association and the International Dyslexia Association, in which the latter stated that the Dore program “is not supported by current scientific knowledge.” Margaret Snowling of York University also received a letter asking that she retract a statement to the British Broadcasting Corporation that there is no scientific evidence for the efficacy of the Dore treatment.’
Source: Nature Neuroscience, full text free at: http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2007/20070806_dore/NatureEditorial.pdf
SPeLD NSW: ‘SPELD NSW is a non-profit-making association of parents and professional persons interested and involved in advancing the education and general well-being of children and adults with Specific Learning Difficulties / learning disability.’
http://www.speldnsw.org.au/aboutus/aboutus.php
Obviously I can’t give details on individual parents, but it happens.
‘have a loss for Dore’s success’?
I don’t think I’ve made any secret that I’m a student at York, it’s been mentioned in a Myomancy article & in my blog linked to from every post. I don’t stand to make any personal gains, being an undergrad student.
I should clarify that although SPELD NSW was intimidated into not talking about DORE any more, being a small organisation with little legal clout, then Snowling & other academics were found to be acting correctly in law as to what they said. Prof Snowling was said to have a positive moral duty to speak on such things, so DORE’s legal action was incorrect.
I’ve previously posted about DORE’s legal threats on the DOREtalk forum: http://dore.co.uk/doretalk/forums/t/436.aspx
To quote part of what I said then:
‘You could see also here: http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2007/s1997916.htm
‘As in the UK, Dore summoned lawyers to deal with criticism.
DR PAUL WHITING, PRESIDENT EMERITUS SPELD NSW : Suing people who are critical of you is not a great way to answer the criticis. You’re just attacking the messenger but you don’t change the message by that approach.
MATTHEW CARNEY: When SPELD (the Specific Learning Difficulties Association in New South Wales) posted a critique of the Dore Program and drew attention to the scientific uproar about its research, a threatening legal letter arrived accusing this largely voluntary service of publishing material which:
” … may amount to misleading and deceptive conduct …”
PROFESSOR MAX COLTHEART, MACQUARIE CENTRE FOR COGNITIVE SCIENCE: The information we’ve put up there about the Dore Program was that this had been criticised by the British Dyslexic Association and the International Dyslexic Association in America, hoping that would mean parents would think twice about spending all this money on a treatment that had been publicly criticised by International Organisations.
DR PAUL WHITING, PRESIDENT EMERITUS SPELD NSW : Well our reaction was that we were dealing with an organisation that had a lot of money and we didn’t have any money and therefore we weren’t going to take them on.’
This is one of the things I find most upsetting about DORE, apart from the mis-presentation of research – that the organisation argues with lawyers, not with facts. If they have a good factual argument, they should not need to reach for the lawyers so readily.
I think the links are gone due to the fact that they are 4 years old -nothing more sinister than that!
Let the parents and Dore graduates tell their experience, not those that have never done or intend to do the program…………
frazzle we couldnt do that…its not ‘scientific’ enough….oh god dont let the duck get started on THAt again……
“I would like to gather a comprehensive collection of experiences of people who have been through some or all of the DDAT or any other program.”
I know, I know, Eraina! 🙂 There’s plenty of places for Duck’s points, but here, Chris wanted personal experiences.
Oh, here I also recall Chris said “any other program.”
Here, I’d like to add my own personal experience of the Bender program to mature the infant reflex called the STNR. I did that program about two years ago, and the most dramatic result has been an increase also, in my reading comprehension that exists still to this day. So, I do see how it is possible that children undergoing the Dore program can have results as well.
Bless.