Dore Talk

We checked into the DORE program about 2 months ago for my daughter. A month after that we had an eye examination done. Her tests from the eye exam showed that she would be a wonderful candidate for Vision therapy. Sounds familiar because we were also told my daughter would be a wonderful candidate for the DORE program too. The vision therpay program was explained to us and it appears to me that the DORE program and vision thearpy are exactly the same..... tracking a ball, tracking corners of a room with numbers at each corner, remembering patterns, etc. Can someone tell me the difference between vision therapy and the DORE program other than vision therapy is paid for by insurance and the DORE program isn't?

Isn't the DORE program just vision therapy repackaged in a way more expensive package? My daughter was diagnosed with tried and true testing....not "specalized DORE equipment" used by "specalized DORE trained staff".

Please see my reply to the same question here http://doretalk.com/forums/p/321/1735.aspx#1735

Also I have read of someone who had Bupa pay for Dore, not that many people in UK have private insurance as we already pay for NHS treatment, I had to pay privately for a vision optomotrist who did a very "shady" testing regime and gave us thumb rotation exercises!! recommended by Dyslexia Action!!??.  Many opticians deny the help that visual therapy can give here in UK, my local optician said it was rubbish- I went elsewhere.

Might like this site http://ontrackreading.com/the-vision-piece

You pays your money and makes your choices, but they have to be yours and you should be happy with them, and it's covered by insurance, win win situation. You evidently feel your doing the right thing you don't have to justify yourself to anyone, I get the feeling your still not sure if what your doing is enough. None of us do, we are doing the best for our kids. But I would look into OT aswell as that may be covered by insurance also.

DORE is not vision therapy. It does have 100 or so vision orientated exercises but these are used in a balanced programme along with other sensory stimulations. Dore is different in that our main aim is cerebellar stimulation and we use visual as well as other exercises in combination to maintain a sustained stimulation. Only the magnocellular aspects of the visual system enter the cerebellum so the exercises are mainly based around this system and are linked to eye movement control, vestibular-ocular systems and peripheral visual systems. There is little evidence that the vision therapy you mention can have any impact on conditions like dyslexia.

Dore equipment is highly specialised equipment fully approved and categorised as medical devices and the same as that used globally by neurologists, ophthalmologists and balance specialists.

Dr Roy I have a question for you which I feel that I have to get the right angle on it, I do not want to tell anyone something which may be incorrect.

I know that the Dore Treatment ultimately will allow children/adults to finally learn on a par with their peers and function normally without the difficulties which hindered their progress. Where dyslexia is concerned I am not sure, I always think that if they have mild to moderate dyslexia they may well be free of it after completing the treatment but if severe they may well become mild/moderate as they are now able to cope with their dyslexia without the CDD to hinder their progress.

I would be truely grateful if you could help me with this. Ellie XXX

Ellie,

What is exciting about what we are seeing at Dore and what is becoming apparent in neuroscience is that dyslexia (if that should be the correct word) seems to be a problem of learning certain skills rather than just a specific issue with reading. Historically It has been taken on by educationalists because reading is obviously a very significant disability associated with the disorder (being one of the most difficult skills for us humans to learn) and tends to be the most obvious of all the symptoms . We must all learn skills to become proficient and eventually automatic (i.e.doing something without conscious effort). That does not mean dyslexics cannot do some things well but it might not be without conscious effort, thus some or an awful lot of mental resource is required to do it. This takes up a great deal of mental capacity and prevents our brain from doing other things. When it comes to reading the thing that is very important about being able to read automatically is that we then have the full mental resources to comprehend what we read.

So to really treat dyslexia we should be addressing the core problem which is learning ability. Currently dyslexia specialists do it differently. It ignores the learning problem (because the industry believes that you cannot change learning) and instead focuses on ways to decode words more easily using strategies not affected by the learning problem. This works a little as dyslexics generally have good memory for information (declarative memory) so can learn clever ways to work out words. Howvever this is not how people without this condition learn to read. This is where dyslexics will struggle with the automaticity so essential be be a fluent reader. Thus on tests of decoding words dyslexics who have been intensively trained can show good improvements. However when examining automaticity, fluency and comprehension there is little change. One must ask the question, what is the point of reading words if you cannot easily understand what has been read. This is why dyslexics who appear to read well still struggle to comprehend without constant re-reading of text.

This might sound a little bit rambling but there is a point to it all.

Recent reserach at Dore which is to be published soon is showing that despite the initial severity of underlying learning problems Dore is improving people back into the normal range in most of the significant areas linked to learning. This means that those with the poorest perfromances are making the greatest gains. We are very excited by this finding as it is the opposite of what you find with other dyslexia supports where gains are less the more severe the underlying problems. This is simply because these lieracy support systems rely on learning systems to work so will work better when underlying learning processes are less impaired. This also suggests that Dore is actually getting to the root of the problem as it is having an impact across the whole range of performances which are found to be weak in dyslexia.

In terms of changing severe dyslexics into moderate dyslexics and moderate into mild dyselxics we nust consider what we are talking about.

If you judge dyslexia by its core underlying learning problems then this is not the case. Dore changes severe, moderate or mild problems back to normal performance levels. If we are talking about literacy performances usually assocaited with dyslexia then we are discussing the long term impact on developing a skill. Despite correcting the underlying core learning problem to allow learning to take place normally no-one can make up for the lack of practice effect on reading. Thus when we see those with severe reading problems compared to milder reading problems it is going to be much easier to improve milder than severe reading performance through the required practice. Say for example that each year one falls behind in reading ability equates to 500 hours of reading practice (for non dyslexic normal readers) then someone who is 4 years behind will require 2000 hours of practice once learning systems have been corrected where as someone only one year behind would need only 500 hours of practice. Thus although it may seem that the more severe dyslexic does not improve to normal in fact it is only because they cannot manage to cram 2000 hours of reading in by the time they complete Dore. If they could they would show huge changes. In fact we have seen just that where young severe dyslexics (3-4 years behind) use Dore and start to see that they can learn to read and retain words more easily then start to read more and more to the point where they are reading in the car on the way to their Dore appointment. Such levels of practice and having corrected underlying learning problems had led to considerable gains in these clients performances and we have seen reading ages improve 3-4 years over the course of Dore. What must be understood is that reading is a skill which normally only improves trhough practice even if underlying learning systems are normal. Dore cannot change the way people practice (although we do strongly encourage this when the time is right) but those who do will see the benefits. If  the 'severe' dyslexics did spend the many hours of catch up practice needed we would see severe dyslexia improving to levels considered to indicate that no dyslexia is present.

Hope that makes sense to everyone.

Al the best

Dr. Roy

Thanks Dr Roy you have explained it brilliantly and as you say is very exciting I will look forward to the next Dore research results.

I always have said that children will continue to improve even after Dore, as I saw it in my daughter Leila. I always believed it was because she had a lot of learning she had missed prior to Dore. It is great that even those who have severe dyslexia or like Leila with significant learning problems can see significant gains and go on to learn within the normal range, I saw it all happen in Leila . Thank you again I am truly grateful. Ellie XXX

Thank you for your explanation of vision therapy versus dore for dyslexics.  My son aged 10 is not dyslexic, he has CDD and displays the same symptoms being not able to comprehend what he is reading, having disasterous affect on his school work. He is  totally demotivated therefore shuns any sort of reading. So catching up for us is going to take forever! However, we are on the brink of the mental tasks and 10 months into the programme. We have seen progress in fine motor skills as he said "his hand were like a baby elephant trunk he had no control over them!) and a general calming. He is taking an entrance exam for a local school next January. Is the outcome for CDD as favourable as dyslexics? and any advice with this problem Thanks

Hi Rae was not sure whether you meant CDD (Cerebellum Development Delay) or Childhood disintergrative Disorder had to look that one up had not heard of it before. So is it the latter your son has I gather it is rare and they do not know what causes it or how to treat it. Would be interested to know.

It is a form of autism I always said Leila had triates of autism but was never diagnosed with it, she was handicapped by having a low IQ which exasibated her problems. She is learning on a par with her peers now and is making normal progress without any of the autism traites and all the other global learning difficulties which hindered her life before Dore. To me if Dore could help Leila than it can help anyone. Ellie XXX

Hi Wow that is amazing! However, Its definately cerebellum development delay, as diagnosed by Dore. Only about half way through Im floundering a bit because changes are so gradual that they are often overlooked. Maybe Im wrong,  but acedemically what people seem to say is that its only when you do the mental exercises do you start to notice a real difference.

Hi Rae so it is the Cerebellum Development Delay (CDD) in the end this was also Leila's diagnosis for all her global difficluties. I said she was at the worse end of the CDD chain as her symptoms were so severe with the low IQ just to compound things.

Your son is developing normally and as you say you are apt to miss the changes until they for some reason come out and hit you. There will be changes in some areas that you did not even realise were part of his CDD, Leila commencing the mental tasks was when I saw the greatest gains and the lifting of "the fog" as I came to call it, If you click on the link below you will see a piece I wrote explaining what I saw with Leila during the mental tasks.

The mental tasks I always say is where our chidren finally learn how to multi task or think of several things at once. It is also where all that they have gained so far all come together and finally heralds the lifting of that fog. It will mean they can listen, write and look at what they are doing all at the same time. Pre Dore our children have to spend so much energy and time on comprehending what they are supposed to be doing just to make sense of it all. They can only concentrate on one thing at anytime.

If you have read my other posts Leila has continued to improve and make up that lost time in learning and life skills actually and was on a par in learning with her peers 9 months after completing Dore. She is over two years post Dore now and is a totally different child. Her brother is now in his first week of commencing Dore and seems to be following his older sister but his issues are not as severe as hers were.

I would love to know what issues your son has Rae and how he has improved so far. Ellie XXX

http://doretalk.com/search/SearchResults.aspx?q=the+fog&u=2108

Hi Ellie,

Sorry to reply to an old post, but I was reading through and I saw that you said that Leila had a low IQ pre Dore.We have been told that M has a low IQ as well and before we embarked on this programme we were told because of this, his problems may not all be because of CDD. We discussed it and felt that a child with so many learning issues could appear to have a low IQ but in reality his IQ could be hampered by his inability to learn, in which case if we can improve his learning ability then the IQ could improve too. So my question is really , did Leila's IQ improve after Dore? or does their IQ always stay the same regardless? Sorry if you have already explained this somewhere, there are just so many posts!!

Thank you Sarah

 Hi Sarah

      Yes Leila's IQ was considered low for learning which is why they would not class her as dyslexic, they quoted as learning within her IQ range, very frustrating at the time because to me a child  who like Leila spent all her time in a fog would have problems comprehending most normal things in life, so to me an IQ test would not be able to tell them what her true potential was because of that fog.

We have not had Leila's IQ retested since the one prior to Dore because we have not had to, she does not struggle as she used to and no longer has the same issues we had prior to Dore. She was learning on a par with her peers within 9 months after finishing Dore and from then on just needed to make up the learning she had missed. There are no signs of that low IQ now and I am sure that she will continue to develop normally into adulthood and be able to achieve what ever she wants to out of life.

 I don't know if Morgan is the same as Leila with his low IQ Sarah, they never gave us a reason for why they thought Leila's might be low, but for her Dore took care of the fog and the rest followed with her learning ability. So in a nutshell Leila's IQ developed as she came out of the fog and finally was able to learn on a par with her peers, unless Morgan has an underlying problem then there is no reason why he shouldn't be able to develop normally as Leila has.

Don't forget though the childs early years are so important in learning terms, they miss the milestones and it means they have a lot of ground to make up on. Leila was still playing catch up when she reached secondary school also they can have a real problem with confidence in themselves it meant a lot of input from teachers and us her parents in praising her and helping her to realise that she was now progressing normally. Hope this helps Sarah. Ellie XXX

Hi Ellie

Thanks for replying. When the ed phsyc told us that Morgan had a low IQ , we were astonished, as when he was little (pre school) people had always remarked at how bright he was and even when he was in reception, the teachers said what an amazing memory he had. Everything changed when he went into year 1. His main problem was and is language, particularly receptive, and as I pointed out to the Ed phsyc, if he can't understand what you're asking, how can he give the correct answer?(he would therefore appear to have a low IQ). I also feel that because they reported he had a low IQ, they would not waste time looking into what the actual learning difficulties were, they just labelled him with 'moderate learning difficulties'.

Since finding out about Dore I have read that dyslexia isn't just an inability to read but can have many other forms , such as receptive and expressive language problems !!, which is why we decided to give it a go.  Morgan had lots of tests to find out why he has these problems, brain scans, blood tests etc but everything came back completely clear so there is nothing underlying thankfully.I feel positive that the programme will help and reading all the wonderful success stories ,like Leila, is making sure that we get to the end to see the results.

Thanks Sarah x

Hi Sarah, this sounds exactly like my son Jordan- he too is said to have a low IQ and all they said was he may always have. How did you manage to get a brain scan and blood tests etc etc. Jordan has problems with speech and language and kept telling the teachers he could not possibly understand half of what was going on in class- and like Morgan this became very apparent in Year 1. Now J is half way through year 5 and the Ed Psych has got people checking and testing Jordan and his reading age is 9 years 3 months (He is 9 years 5 months chronological age)- but he does not retain what he reads or understands and his level of understanding is said to be 5 years 3 months! Approx 18 months to 2 years ago his reading age was 4 years 6 months but in that time Jordan has been seeing a private Tutor who is dyslexic trained and took him right back to the phonics and decoding with amazing results plus being on Lexia at school (though this should have happened a lot sooner!). I have to say since we have been off school Jordan has done his exercises with absolutely no bother and very well- just dreading when the pressures back on when he is back at school on Monday and tired out after his day at school. Still lots of improvements communication wise with Dore, but not so much with the written side of things - does not seem much improvement on progress scale.   Tracey x

Hi Tracey

The brain scans etc were offered to us as no-one in our family has had learning difficulties and the peadatrician wanted  to just be sure that Morgs didn't have a syndrome ( can't remember the names) or a tumor and also he was very poorly at birth and his fontinal didn't close until he was 4 1/2 yrs.She was great, but I think she was only going to such lengths because of all the little things that were wrong with him.But as I said, everything came back normal and her feelings were that if his language could be sorted, then he would be absolutley fine.Unfortuantly he was so far behind in school at this point, that even though she ffought very hard for him,she couldn't get him in to the local language school!!Also she felt the same as me about the IQ test and said she felt it was inaccurate because of his understanding.

How long has Jordan been on the programme,i know you have prob mentioned before, but I forget? Jordan's reading age is really good and again I must say, all the ages etc that you have mentioned sound the same as Morgan.

I think Morgan's probs are ...... Language understanding, so its like a lesson being taught in Spanish, so in turn he doesn't listen or concentrate  cos he doesn't understand and that means he gets so far behind and because he doesn't understand he hates school !! Its actually very very sad.

I have promised my partner that after Dore I will not do any more and I will accept that he has reached his potential and be happy, so I am really determined to do it properly all of the time to get the best from it and thats all we can do I guess!!

Also I keep meaning to ask someone, but when did you do mentals, because everyone who has results on the programme did mentals towards the end ,but we are doing them on each exercise after we have done them 5xs in a row and i wondered if i should be seeing results quicker or not??

thanks Sarah

Hi,

It is unbelievable how similar things are between Morgan and Jordan! Jordan has been on the programme since 4/3/2009. You mentioned about Morgan's fontanelle Jordan's was very late closing I don't remember it being 4 and a half but certainly up until 3! Does by any chance Morgan have the cradle cap(around the fontanelle area) that sometimes babies have, Jordan has had this since he was born but we had just about got rid of it before staring the programme, however it came back with a vengeance when we were 2 weeks into the programme (it is probably just to do with his colouring blonde and blue eyed), but a child at school with learning difficulties seemed to also have it (also blonde and blue) so just being curious. Jordan has done a few exercises with mentals and they seem to crop up when we have reported approx 4 to 6 manageables (don't quote me on that),only ever reported one easy exercise. Since doing the programme Jordan talks a lot more- before he could not even answer a phone correctly- it was like he could not listen and think about speaking, but since,he answers the phone all the time and can concentrate and answers questions ... and he remembered a telephone number for the first time 3 weeks ago absolutely unheard of prior to Dore.Jordan thinks very literally (for example if you say it's raining cats and Dogs outside- he will say no it isn't)-or if I said it is at the bottom of the bed he would look under the bed (i.e top is up, bottom is under- but he would not inderstand at the foot of the bed either he would say there isn't a foot)- this is getting slightly better but still have to watch how we phrase things.

Where are you from? We are from  West Yorkshire and our next assessment is on Saturday 27th Feb, we should have gone 21/12/09 but too snowy to set off.

How old is Morgan again (sorry to ask, it's just we all read so much info you forget where you read it!)        Tracey

Hi Tracey

Happy new year.How funny , we should've been going to Dore on 27th February but can't as we will be away.We are from Christchurch in Dorset so its such a hassle going to the assessments up in Stratford.When we first looked into it they had a clinic in Southampton whiuch would've been ideal.

Morgan is 9 and in year 4.He is one of the oldest ,for which I am so thankful,as a couple of weeks earlier and he would've been in the year above!!!!

Morgan never had a prob with cradle cap I am afraid,(he has got olive skin and grey eyes so it could just be the fair colouring), but its funny that Jordan had the same fontanelle thing.The specialists down here were amazed and decided to call it a Morganism!!!

We marked all the exercises as difficult for ages, until we went for the first ass, where they told us we were being too picky!I think we are so desperate for it too work that we are wanting him to do them just right, so that we can get as much as we can from the programme.

Just another funny thing ,but Morgan also remembered our phone number for the first time 2 nights ago!!!!!And he is currently doing an exercise that requires him to look at  different numbers and letters on the card in a certain order and he has almost memorised them all!

Have Dore given you any indication as to how long Jordan will be on the programme? Has he changed loads since you started?

Sarah x