Dore Talk

My son has Asperger's Syndrome.  He used to cry, scream, rant, rage and punch himself in the head over his maths homework because he didn't understand it and it was too hard.

He commenced DORE in March this year and he has just received 40/40 for his maths test at school.   My husband sat him down with his maths the other night, and his answers were fluent, without pause, he could do it on his own, we were totally gobsmacked, there was no meltdown, no problems and he had done a full page of math work within 10 minutes - it was like someone had flicked on a switch - we were so totally amazed, words cannot express.

 Thank you Wynford so much for giving us this opportunity to help our children.

As far as research goes, it is my opinion that Dore should have been the ones funding and conducting the research (double blind), as this therapy was their baby, so to speak. Why should someone else have to foot the research bill? For those of us who did NOT experience positive results, we would appreciate seeing concrete, indisputable evidence that Dore is effective and, even more importantly, seeing for WHOM the treatment is beneficial (to a statistically significant degree). All Dore would have had to have done is use its own clients as research subjects, possibly offering these clients a free or discounted course of treatment and then offering the control group members treatment upon conclusion of the research project (if the program had been found to be effective). I still would be interested in seeing hard data regarding the number of clients for whom Dore was "truly effective" (even though that term would be difficult to define).

My point was that this professor should have backed up what he said about the programme with his own research - if he doesn't have the facts and research authenticity then he shouldn't be putting negative publicity out there when he cannot confirm it - why should DORE have to get feedback such as his when he hasn't/can't back it up?

I believe DORE has provided research (even though it is disputed) they have done it already.  I am sorry you didn't have positive results.  My kids have made such enormous improvements, this is enough for me.  I hope you find something that does help.

Hi Starshine/ Fallenash,

All's i can say is the huge success we have had with the program fro our son...Now 10 as of today.

We had around 12 people here tonight for a little party, usually by an hour we are pulling our hair out as he would get way to overwhelmed and some what out of control being around that many people......He was fantastic and we were all able to relax and have a nice time. This time last year i'd be so stressed by the event. Not this year. Yay!.

I did alot of my own research before we started the program...... Our clinic here had their "Wall of Fame", as did the clinic we went to initally in Sydney. One thing that i did was too take it upon myself to contact some of those 'success stories'....And from that, we chose to go with it.

I would gladly show the test results from the program to anybody, also his school exams, Basic Skills Test from last year, school books ect so people were able to see the change and differences in what he has achieved!. His school were not for the program, But soon changed their views when a massive difference was noticed in all aspects of his life. They were turning parents to me for information on the program. I feel for those whom the program has not worked for....But that goes with eveything.......

For us it's a big succes for all thats in our family! And the only thing we found successfull! (and weve have tried everything)

Kristy :)

CONGRATULATIONS to your son!!!!

I so know that feeling... And it's the best!

Funny you should call it a "Meltdown", as that is what we have said when things go bad with our son. "Oh crap here comes a meltdown"!... So i know where you are comming from!

And yes, that switch being flicked on!....

Well done to your boy and DORE.

Kristy :)

Starshine, if you stop and think about what you just said, I'd like to point a few things out to you. 

1.  Even "proven" treatments do not work for everyone.  Hallowell himself is one of a percentage of individuals that do not respond to medications.  Dore was upfront with me and my son about how effective it may or may not be, and was stated so in the contract. As in anything, we understood the risk, and had no pre-concieved outcomes in mind.  Thus, we were NOT set up to be dissappointed or angry or blameful. We also finished the program, with some of his most astounding results coming in at the very week of his final assessment.  If I recall from your previous notes, your child did not complete the program, please correct me if I am wrong.

2.  It would be totally unethical and cruel to subject a person to over a year's worth of therapy only to be found to be in the "control group" that you and everyone wants to see.  I would not want that for myself or my child, even if, as you say, they turned around and offered it again to the control group so they got the real deal.  I may be alone in my thinking here, but put yourself in the shoes of someone trying to get through "two" sessions of Dore.  Gads, one was quite enuf!  And, for those of us with older children in their teens, well, that just would not have left us with much time in their lives to follow through, you see. 

3. What is generally standard, I believe, in therapueutic treatments (non-medication) is to track the participants during the time of the therapy and afterwards, and form case studies and/or observational studies, such as the case with other types of physical, neurological, and/or occupational therapy/rehab, etc.  The prison trial (which I assume is set up as a case or observational-type study) Dore is undertaking will be quite revealing when the results are published, one, because they are adults going through the program and the variables of maturing and development (say of a child) over one to two years to complete the program is completely factored out. 

 

Hi Louby - thanks, its such a relief not to have those meltdowns over homework.  He has only been on the programme for 2 months and his behaviour in general hasn't changed - we still get surprised when he goes off his nut but at least its not over homework anymore - take that out of the equation and life gets a whole lot more manageable.

I too, did my own research, I looked first into what the DORE people had to say, everything the critics said, then looked at the positive posts on another forum, also got evidence from a friend whose child was on the programme and that clinched it for me to sign up my daughter.  When we saw amazing results with her, we signed up my son as well.

I will never regret spending that money, even though my son was only on the programme for 2 months, the kids are so much more confident now and are doing well at school.

One thing I do regret and that is not signing my son up sooner, we could have been so much further down the DORE path if we hadn't put it off because of holidays etc and the inconvenience of doing 2 lots of DORE twice a day on holidays.  If I had known, I would have cancelled the holiday and started DORE sooner for my boy.

Frazzle, you are absolutely INCORRECT.  We DID complete the program!  We spent TWO YEARS completing the program...WITH INTEGRITY.  We indeed fulfilled our contractual obligations.  As I've said before, obviously Dore agreed that we "completed the program" (as you say) because they refunded our $ IN FULL.  And good for you and your son that the prorgam worked.  That is a blessing.  But I doubt you would have the same positive attitude had the program NOT worked for your family.  You probably would be more skeptical and critical if you saw your son work hard day in and day out completing the exercises to no avail.  As far as your suggestion of tracking the participants during the therapy...good idea.  Dore should have TONS of data to be able to share along these lines, even at this point, as the program has been around long enough.  And children need to be represented as well, as it is this population that was so prevalent as Dore clientelle.  I would love to see hard data about the program's success.  Unfortunatley, this will probably never happen because of the current state of affairs.

BTW, I apologize for misspelling "clientele" and "unfortunately" in my previous post.  

Hi Fallenash

Our son is the same, he too still has a meltdown every blue moon, But that wasnt our real concern we went on the program for his Learning Difficulties. Now he is the top in the class for reading, and maths is almost the same. We have found the meltdowns have reduce quite significantly with him taking the natural tablets, GABBA and Ltheanine (we produce it in our boddies). They have made big differences to his mental calmness and anxiousness.

And these tablets have huge controversy themselves, they arnt available in Australia. But they are working.

We too have no regrets about the program either, the only one that its gone. But we will continue with MyDore.

Cheers

Kristy :)

 

 HI Starshine.....Can you clear something up for me then?  You said in an earlier post here last year:

"At our 15th follow-up visit, I asked to be dicontinued and requested a refund" And then you posted a bit later in October that you had decided to continue to follow the program with your son, but I could not find a post that said that your son had completed and been finished off, tho it's hard to maneuver around this forum for me a bit.  As I think I wrote you, my son had some very important and worthwhile improvements (regarding working memory) the actual week of his scheduled sign-off assessment.  I understand this is not unusual for participants to notice, as well as improvements or results starting to show or continuing even PAST the approved completion of the program. I would feel very badly for you and your son if you had stopped him short of being able to acheive something to that point.  But, some people just do not respond to the treatment either. It is a risk you take with anything, proven or not.

Again, I am really truly very sorry that you and your son worked very hard at this with results that you can observe.  My son and I did about two year's worth of combined therapy as well, so I know the work and investments involved.

We have tried and done many things in this journey, probably all amounting to the cost of Dore or more.  Many of them did not work.  Do you think I should be entitled to and request a refund for all the medications, supplements, tests, doctors visits, evaluations, etc, for all those "proven" things that should have worked? It seems you were very lucky that Dore accommodated your complaints. 

 

No, Frazzle, I specifically said that my son showed NO IMPROVEMENTS. Working memory is his WORST area. NOTHING was helped by Dore. Even our Dore Center staff entirely agreed with me and could not understand why he was making no improvements in either his testing scores or his daily functioning (as both areas showed no gains). I'm not sure why you were under the impression that I had said his working memory had improved. To be fair, you may have been confusing me with someone else. Yes, I was lucky Dore refunded my money considering the current state of events. But you seem to imply that I had no right to get my money back, as you compare my situation to your "proven" interventions that did not work. You seem to be forgetting one important point, however. I signed a CONTRACT with Dore, and in that contract they guaranteed their results. I fully abided by their contract, and obviously they did, too. I doubt that you signed a contract guaranteeing results when you tried medication and supplements for your son. I am currently using supplements for my son, and I signed no contract. Thankfully, I have had wonderful results with these supplements (for which he is under the care and guidance of a MD), and we have only been taking them for a little over a month. BTW, the only reason I restarted the program briefly was because I was pretty much forced to do so by the USA Dore "powers that be". I was told they did not feel he had "completed the program", so I reluctantly agreed to stay on the program for one more re-eval. Upon further consideration and after carefully re-reading the contract, however, I realized that I had no obligation to jump through these extra hoops, so to speak, because I HAD met all the obligations as specified in the contract (and actually had gone beyond and above the contractual requirements). My son was showing no progress at the appts., let alone in his day-to-day functioning. Thank you for your sympathy that the program was unsuccessful for us. But please understand that we DID perform the exercises with 95% and above compliance (or whatever the contract stated) accurately and with integrity. I was beyond motivated to make this program work because I wanted to do anything and everything possible to keep my son off of prescription medication (especially stimulants) due to his small stature and the possible side effects. I'm just sorry things did not turn out the way I had hoped. Just know, Frazzle, that it is possible to comply 100% with the program requirements and still not see the gains you hope to see. Have a good day.

Frazzle, as an addendum to my above post, I just reread your post and realized I misunderstood. I initially read your post incorrectly, thinking you had said that I reported significant gains in MY son's working memory; I now see that you were talking about your own son. Without this explanation, you probably would have thought I was off my rocker! Nonetheless, I still stand by the second part of my post and defend my right to a refund. Sorry for the confusion...one might think I have a reading comprehension or language processing deficit!

The DORE program has always attracted attention due to the lack of evidence which can be seen in figures. How do you put a figure on a parent saying it has changed their childs life. However, medication can be tested measured in Mg's and blood counts etc.

Sadly in Aus, DORE continues to get a bashing, even by media outlets who would normally be respected for their professional reporting. Attached is a link to an ABC site with a transcript of tonights program.

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2007/s2276392.htm

Below this link is my response to this program  which I had to send as a seperate email as the ABC site would only accept 100 words!

The ABC reporters have now entered into the same group as Channel 7 and 9. I always used to hold ABC in high regard as being a professional reporting body able to express a balanced view on modern day issues. However (as a parent with a child on DORE) I feel they have let down an awful lot of people. Tonight on the ‘7.30 REPORT’ I witnessed another biased one-sided report on how DORE has 'ripped off' so many people. I also noticed tonight that the reporter failed to mention the creditors report identifying the previous years 4 Corners program as being a catalyst to the demise of the company. It was the, again one sided reporting of the 4 corners program that sent out warnings to the public about what a rip off the DORE system was. What it clearly did not do is show any of the thousands of families whose lives this system has changed. The quality of life it has given many children and adults was never mentioned. Instead it chose to centre on a few parents who, for their own reasons, decided it was not for them. Remember the program is dependent on a great deal of compliance and cooperation by the parents to make the change. How do we know these parents were compliant with the program set?? So, with the ABC not satisfied with helping the DORE program shut down, they now have to go in for the kill and tarnish all the hard work done by the dedicated staff and parents. Yes the company may have been run better, but maybe the caring emotions of staff and the desire to get this program to as many children as possible got in the way of good business sense. The greatest sadness is not the loss of money to the enrolled parents, not the loss of unpaid wages (not mentioned in your report) to the dedicated staff or their forced redundancy, but to the fact that from this day on thousands of children with learning and behavioral difficulties will not benefit from such a fantastic program. Yes, I hear all you critics yell...THERE IS NO PROVEN SCIENCE IN THE PROGRAM.... but this was never an exact science... when you are dependent on so much compliance from parents and children, how can you be sure of the science. The fact is... this was working for my daughter and I know it was working for many others. But no more... Maybe the government may pick it up, who knows, but I am sure you great reporters will be on their backs about the waste of government money on such a program.... how about the waste of money on Ritalin.... but then again, its probably in everyone’s best interest that this drug is dispensed as it brings in money for many people!!... Enough rant... and sadly the last I will watch ABC current affairs!!

 

Hi Everyone,

new to this site but I have two children on the program as well and am in Melbourne. I too will email the "Ruddy Idiot" but if he wont help the Pensioners you can bet he has no heart to help us. Everything positive is worth a try so will get to it. From what I heard they were trying to get Richard Branson involved I think with the UK because of his Dyslexia and work on him from that aspect. Dont know how that went. I hadn't heard the RMIT thing but we have done 2 years of neurotherapy several years back and I know they are associated with RMIT, I only hope it wasn't them that had anything to do with this because the Professor that runs it looked after both my boys at the clinic we saw him at and he was a very positive alternative person, really, his thought was anything that works is good. Unfortunately neuro didn't work on our boys but this DORE program seems to be doing something, both are 7 months in to the program. I cant say I have seen major changes and I cant say that the changes are all for the better that we have seen but they are both a bit more relaxed and more attentive at school. We too have done the Ritalin thing with the older of the two and absolutely agree that it is a band-aid job in fact it is more hard work than DORE because of the rebound effect, at least we are more conditioned to the suffering because it is on going and not put on hold for a certain time and then feeling the explosion once it hits after withdrawal of Ritalin takes place. Good on all of you for taking such positive action, I really hope it works out, I too dont care about the money only the fact that we need to get through the program and in fact to find out when the end will be. May be we will all have to fly to New Zealand and pay privately in desperation but such a drastic step. I called the finance office today and they told me you have to keep paying the monthly payments until they get notification from DORE, as they said, they are the middle man and no matter what they have to be paid, taking the financial side back to between DORE and us to fight out. I hope this info is of help to anyone and everyone on here in some small way.

Hi and welcome to the forum!  I wish you luck in contacting the Ruddy idiot.  I sent him a letter on 23 May, with a follow up in the last week but with no success and not even an email to say that they are looking into it - nothing.  I was also disappointed to see the 7.30 report on the ABC as they focussed only on the parents who have lost their money, they didn't even mention that the exercises were available online.  Put a couple of posts in their letters section but they have not appeared, so now, I've sent them an email asking why.

Nothing in my letter was out of line or rude or anything like that, so I'm not sure why I've failed to post it.  Main point was expressing disappointment and telling them about the exercises still being available.

The comment from the ex Dore Director Australia when he was asked why the company was still taking new clients when it was insolvent as from January - he says that he resigned (only recently though) and that he wasn't in charge of the company - that was it.  Apparently they have been illegally trading since January when they should have stopped taking new clients on.

They knew they were in trouble when they had around $420,000 in wages to pay and only $90,000 in the bank, yet they still signed new people up to the program.  I felt a bit angry listening to that, I am positive Wynford didn't know what was happening here, seems that Australian Directors and CEO's have a lot to answer for.

So, as I signed my son up in March - them accepting our money was illegal.  My husband contacted the administrators here and they said there is no money and good luck if you want to try and get some back, there is nothing to give back.

 I think  Mr Rudd is too concerned about mud slinging on the Liberal party and worried about 80% of the population wanting him to do something about petrol prices - he doesn't care about families and the future of our children.

Fallen ash, I am one of those people who lost money and have no excersises, as we had not received our first set. We have NO excersises, we have NO money. We, minority for sure, and inthe middle.

 I have filed with the administrators. The amount of paperwork they have forwarded me is amazing, the facts disturbing - and it seems, Mr Dore did in fact know of the issues, as he was kept informed of the trading status of the company(ies) via monthly reports from his CEOs.  He supposedly knew 3 months before the centres closed down that Australia was trading insolvent.

Hi Fallenash

I to have sent posts to the ABC and my posts still have NOT made it on their site either!!!! And no responces to my emails!

I also asked them to interview our family, But as im not for slamming the Dore Program i highly doubt they will be in touch! As the same for the SMH after the interview i did with them only to have my words not printed and in the article on their website they completely twisted my words!

So im a little over the Media at the moment! As for the "Ruddy Idiot".....Well what can i say?...... Idiot!

It angered me that they only had people on their report that have lost out..... However where is my side to the story??..... There is alot more out there that have had the success as we did!, And are still having from MyDore.

Can i ask?.... Are you doing MyDore?

 

HI Roosmum

Sorry for the loss of your money and as you said you are in the middle. But can i just ask..... Why didnt you get your first set of exercises??.... As you walk out with those and your kit on the day of your first assessment! And if you did sign up for the program you would have your PID# therefore be able to do the program online.

My problem that i have with it all is that im so sick and tired of seeing nothing but negative things about it in the media!

Fair enough if they are going to do a report about it have the good and the bad! I was interviewed a couple of weeks ago about the DORE Program by a leading National paper, but because i wasnt going to slam or shaft the program they didnt print my interview! Only to put a few words on their website, but twisted what i said anyway. So they just wasted nearly half an hour of my time doing the interview!

Cheers

Because we had to pay up front before receiveing our 'package' with all our info.