Dore Talk

Dr Rutherford, I'm confused as to which publication by the USA National Reading Panel you refer to, since their own website does not give any work published by the NRP in 2001. However, I shall take a guess and assume you mean this:

B Armbruster, F Lehr, J Osborn (2001) Put Reading First; The Research Building Blocks for Teaching Children to Read. National Institiute for Literacy, Washington D.C.

Also, could you please be clear by what you mean as to 'such teaching programmes he refers to'? I'm going to take a guess and look at the phonics section of that report [free full-text], since phonics seems to be a particular bee in your bonnet.

The report is not long, is open-access, and is structured and written to be appropriate for non-technical readers. I would very much recommend taking a look at it yourself. However, here are some highlights, which suggest that its findings in totality are rather different from the way in which Dr Rutherford presented them:

'Systematic and explicit phonics instruction makes a bigger contribution to children's growth in reading than instruction that provides non-systematic or no phonics instruction.'

'Both kindergarten and first-grade children who receive systematic phonics instruction are better at reading and spelling words than kindergarten and first-grade children who do not receive systematic instruction.'

'Systematic phonics instruction results in better growth in children's ability to comprehend what they read than non-systematic or no phonics instruction.'

'Systematic phonics instruction is beneficial to children regardless of their socioeconomic status. It helps children from various backgrounds make greater gains in reading than non-systematic instruction or no phonics instruction.'

'Systematic phonics instruction is significantly more effective than non-systematic or no phonics instruction in helping to prevent reading difficulties among at risk students and in helping children overcome reading difficulties.'

'How does systematic and explicit phonics instruction affect the reading and spelling of older students?

Systematic phonics instruction by itself may not be enough to significantly improve the overall reading and spelling performance of readers beyond first grade. The effects of phonics instruction on students in second through sixth grades are limited to improving their word reading and oral text reading skills. The effects do not extend to spelling and reading comprehension. For these students, it is important to emphasize reading fluency and comprehension. In addition, these students also require explicit spelling instruction to improve their spelling.'

Hardly the damming assessment you made out - it says that systematic phonics DOES help older students in some areas, but that additional help in other areas should be provided through other methods. It does not say that phonics is ineffective. I can find no reference to particular recommendations around 'reading disability' or 'dyslexia'. Is it possible that Dr Rutherford intended to reference another report?

Dr Rutherford suggests that 'most children will fail to learn to read'. I find myself again confused by this statement. Surely, by definition, most children learn to read normally?

My previous post addressed the misleading advertising in which Dore has and does imply a 'cure' for various SpLDs.  However, it is not difficult to find claims of Dore being a 'cure'.

'WYNFORD DORE, FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR, DORE: So you can imagine the thrill when finally the professors came to us and said, we've analysed these huge amount of research data that's been prepared on results of the Dore Program is getting. You can now justifiably use the word "cure" to describe what you're doing to the underlying root cause of the symptoms of dyslexia and what causes Attention Deficit Syndrome. I mean, what a wonderful moment.'

WYNFORD DORE, FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR, DORE: The results we get are permanent and that's why the professors themselves are starting to use the word cure about what we are doing.

MATTHEW CARNEY (to Professor Rod Nicolson): So it's not a cure- all?

PROFESSOR ROD NICOLSON, DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY, SHEFFIELD UNIVERSITY: I wouldn't have thought so. There are very few cure-alls.

MATTHEW CARNEY: Professor Rod Nicolson, much touted by Dore and one of the authors of the Balsall Common study, is distancing himself from any claims of a cure.

PROFESSOR ROD NICOLSON, DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY, SHEFFIELD UNIVERSITY: The Dore publicity people and also the critics were using words which are not in the article and so that, and therefore there is a sense an equal and opposite reaction from both parties.

MATTHEW CARNEY (to Professor Rod Nicolson): So what do you mean they were using words? Like what?

PROFESSOR ROD NICOLSON, DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY, SHEFFIELD UNIVERSITY: Well words like "cure" for instance, would be, was not mentioned in the article.'

Quotes from the 'Four Corners' transcript. Or are you claiming that Dore does not 'cure' dyslexia, in some sense other than logic-chopping and playing with words?

Dore (back when it was known as DDAT) did claim to be based on 'Nasa technology', NASA issued a press release refuting this.

I hope these clarifications are helpful. Again, I would warmly invite Dr Rutherford to challenge anything I've said that is 'ill informed, based on limited knowledge, biased', since I believe mutual dialogue to be an effective means of education. Of course since I am a humble undergrad, and he is a Very Important GP & in no way 'clearly out of his depth in this field'  I'm sure he won't find it too difficult to point out what must be glaring errors in everything I've written, and since my humble blog is 'very damaging to Dore', I'm sure it will be worth the few minutes of such a great man's time to enlighten me as to exactly where I'm going wrong.

 Duck, I'm not particularly clever. I'm just a normal, average Mum, trying to find a way to help my child. Whilst I understand your reasoning behind your posts, I just want to say that I am getting heartily sick of this line of questioning. Whatever Dore may or may not have said, whoever said what and when, whoever argues about the "lack of clinical research" is of no interest to me, nor probably hundreds of other people who are in the same position as me. However, I cannot speak for them, so I will just speak for myself.

Ritalin was researched to the hilt to prove that it works, CHADD received a huge amount of money from the manufacturers to endorse their product, rumour has it that Doctors have received money for writing prescriptions for Ritalin (that's just a rumour, I want to stress that point). All the millions of dollars spent on clinical research and back handers have brought me here, to this place. For all the research that went before, it now seems that ritalin doesn't work in the long term, and can be attributed to other more serious problems developing in teenagers and adults.

I know you don't advocate medication, but what I'm trying to say is, all that research now counts for nothing. In my opinion, the most POWERFUL research is that of a mothers instinct. It's as old as the hills and can (mostly) be relied upon.

When my child was taking ritalin (researched and proven to work) he suffered terrible mood swings, became violent and often suicidal. We took him off the Ritalin (after 5 years of non-stop prescriptions) and had a further five months of HELL - the worst part being his terrible rages which included smashing objects, threatening to kill himself and others and being so un-predictable that I was afraid to leave him on his own. This also happened while he was medicated.

Since he has been on the Dore programme, he has NOT experienced any of these rages, mood swings, suicidal or homicidal tendencies. We've been on the programme for 5 months.

Before you suggest that we should have tried other alternatives, I want to explain that we have tried EVERYTHING. Behaviour strategies, placebos, threats, bribes, dietary management.... they all failed.

Is there any way you could find it in your heart to STOP Dore bashing on this forum? Have you no compassion at all? What about us parents? Are you doing this to "help" us. Because it's not helping. Not one bit. Please stop.

Well said George's Mum - lets not forget this is a Dore SUPPORT forum. Parents of children - or adults - going through the programme.

bugalug:

Well said George's Mum - lets not forget this is a Dore SUPPORT forum. Parents of children - or adults - going through the programme.

Which is why I've not posted so much on the research compared to all the other stuff going on since the closure of the Australia centres (ok, my standards of 'not much' are still probably 'a fair bit' to most people, but I am 'neurologically interesting' myself...).

However, if Rutherford's going to wildly mis-represent research findings, I don't feel it's fair on anyone to let that go unchallenged. I'd imagine there's a fair number of people wondering what to do now, and they aren't going to be best served by Rutherford's managing to summarise the results of independent studies as being almost exactly opposite what the reports actually say. It's just not honest or accurate, and misleading people is hardly 'compassionate'.

George's Mum, I don't have children myself, but I have at times been my younger brother's main carer - he has ASD & other SpLDs. I can relate to most of what you've written about your son with my brother, and I've worked with children on & off Ritalin too. This is exactly why I care about finding out what works, and that people should be told honestly about the benefits & difficulties of any treatments. That's why I post what I do. I don't know anything about Rutherford's personal life, or much about what makes him feel he needs to mis-represent the evidence for Dore and for other therapies, but I'm not sure how that can possibly be helpful.

 Duck, I appreciate your response, and as I said earlier, I understand the reasoning behind your comments.

I still have to come back to the reason why most of us are here, and posting snippets of information. We are all trying to help our children. When I can see with my own eyes the huge improvement in my sons life (and ours... lol) I can see that what we are doing is working. When you make your posts which question the comments, statements, lack of research, lack of proof etc., I don't see you mentioning all of the parents who have reported improvements using the Dore programme. Surely, this must have some merit? I also want to say that I was particularly disturbed when I read your negative response to a post made by a 13 year old "Dorey" who had nothing but good things to say about her experience with the Dore programme, and you used words that she would understand like "bullies". I mean.... why not just tell all the children in the world that Father Christmas doesn't exist and there's no such thing as the tooth fairy?

If it's working, that's all that matters. Research? I've had a gut full of "this works... we've had years of research to prove it" kind of statements.  It means nothing to me any more. 

Mothers are emotional people. Our children are the world to us, and we do everything we can to help them in this difficult and stressful society. Why do you insist on keep posting these negative comments in this forum? Can you not see how your negative "vibes" may bring us down? Are you absolutely sure that we REALLY want to know this information. I subscribe to the saying that "knowledge is power" but, you know, sometimes "ignorance is bliss" is just as good.

Whilst I'm quoting clichés, how about "if you can't say something good, say nothing at all".

Duck, how strange that as soon as MyDore starts to take off, you are back with your Dore bashing. The evidence that the programme works is staring you in the face. Just read the posts on here. Nobody knows our children better than we do. Many of us turned to the Dore Programme when the system had failed our children and there was nothing else to try. My daughter was referred to the OT by the school in year 1 and didn't get an appointment until year 5. We came away fom that appointment having been told to talk to her slowly, give her one instruction at a time and were given details of where to buy a curved knife and fork. Wow, really useful. By the end of year 5 my daughter had no friends, was called weird by her classmates and couldn't cope with school. She was so frustrated and depressed that she started to talk about wanting to kill herself. She was only nine years old. The best the school could offer was to get the Ed psych into the school to give her an assessment to see if she qualified for  another assessment for statementing. This pre-assessment was going to take a year. I couldn't afford to wait a year. I had a suicidal 9 yr old begging for my help. That is when we turned to Dore and our lives changed. She is now a happy child with LOTS of friends and is catching up very fast at school. Dore has literally saved her life (and mine). If we had waited for the EVIDENCE that you seem to crave, I probably wouldn't have a daughter now. That's all the evidence I need. I have nothing but praise for Wynford and his team. They have been working so hard to bring us MyDore when they could have just shut the whole thing down and left us to our own devices. Thanks to them we can continue with the programme. Please refrain from your attacks on Dore, you are upsetting people who are on this forum for support.

Ooohh, I like cliches too Georges mum!  Psyduck how about these ones "the proof is in the pudding" - with this many success stories it doesn't matter one iota if they say this or didn't say that - this many success stories must mean there is merit in Dore methods.

 Or this one 'put your money where your mouth is" - something for Max Coltheart to take note of, you can't just run around slagging off a company without your own proof and research to say it doesn't work - something he hasn't done.

 All the rest of the arguments are just playing on words, and he said, she said kind of stuff.  At the end of the day, the evidence is right here on these boards that it does do something wonderful and positive.

 Max Coltheart lost credibility when he said they couldn't listen to anecdotal stories from parents - 99% of the time parents instincts are spot on and the establishment has gotten it extremely wrong.

 Like my daughter, as I said before, I had been telling the school since year 1 that something was wrong with her - oh no, they assure me that she has no problems and you need not to compare your child to the progress of other children.  Even when presented with a diagnosis, they couldn't/wouldn't do anything helpful except put her into brain gym - oh and gee whizz, brain gym is very similar to DORE.

She failed to reach the national (govt) benchmark last year for numeracy, literacy and spelling - then it was oh my god, we'd better make a show of doing something.

Give me a thousand academics (who lock themselves away in uni and don't live in the real world), or government or school workers and give me 1 parent - I would listen to the parent every time.

 Or do you think (like Max) that we are all fooling ourselves into believing our children are making progress - how can that be possible when it is noticeable to others as well?

You may wonder why I am so  cynical about the govt and others.  My son screamed from the moment he was born, for months and months, all day, all night to the point where I was admitted to hospital in what the paediatrician described as a 'shattered condition'

  Specialist after specialist, endoscopy, bowel ultrasound etc were performed on my son but they ended up saying he had extreme infant distress syndrome - 3% of babies that just don't settle.  Nothing could be done.

Years of telling the paed, the gp and anyone else who would listen that my son was doing strange things and strange rituals and his behaviour was extreme too.  Speech therapy because he failed to reach proper speech at his milestones.

No-one would listen to me.  Come 4 years of age, when pre-school started and he had a meltdown, the teacher, scolded me, telling me my son was autistic and why hadn't I done anything about it, that they couldn't accept him into preschool because he was too disruptive - I was devastated.  My family said I mollycoddled him and was too over protective and it was my fault he was how he was.

Back to the paed, who listened to the story, got really angry that the teacher had made her own diagnosis and finally I got referred to a diagnostic team - who came back and told us that he has Aspergers Syndrome.  We asked what we could do, and we were told to go home and get on the internet - that was it.

4 years of telling everyone and no-one would listen, 4 years of being accused of being a bad mother and then to be told to research it ourselves on the internet by a panel of people consisting of : Speech therapist, occ therapist, paediatrician, psychologist and a couple of others thrown in for good measure.

I was the parent, I knew that something was wrong, I told them all and no-one believed me  Even to this day, I still don't get any credibility placed in my parental instincts - I am yet to be proven wrong in anything regarding my children

Please refrain from debate and review the forum guidelines in keeping with the spirit of support on DoreTalk; warnings may be issued:

http://dore.co.uk/doretalk/forums/t/850.aspx 

Thank you, ForumModerator1 

HI Georgesmum

All I will say here......Is well said!!!!!!!!!

I agree with you wholehartedly and know exactly what you have gone through with your son, as so have we!

As for those who are DORE bashing........This is a support for us parents on the program, get over yourself and find another forum!

LOL

Kristy

HI Fallenash

Dont you just love the teachers etc tell you how to raise your child, and that you have bad parenting skills!!!.... I have had all of that too.

And i think i could be pretty correct in saying, most of those who have those brainless thoughts DONT have children themselves!!!

I was only 20 when i had our son who is 10, and 24 when i had our daughter now 6...... I had everybody telling me i was to young to know how to parent a child like our son......Saying we are too young to know different things and the ways of modern parenting was so wronge!..... Well *** i think we have done a damm fine job of him. Our choice to do the DORE we feel was the best we had done.....As us too have done everything, been everywhere and seen everyone!

As said "Mothers instinct" ...... Far one of the better ways to judge things!!! That instinct took us to DORE and we now have our boy back and he too knows what it has done for him!.

He is a fairly young 10 year old, But came to me last night whilst on was on this forum and asked "Now there is no more DORE, will i be naughty again and not be able to read"?.... My eyes filled, as i now know that he now knows that the program was what has helped him get to where he now is in his young life.

He then sat here and read all of the posts on here (he couldnt have done that 6 months ago)..... And was flattened to think there was people on here as he said " Saying mean things about DORE". My reply to him was " Thats just the mentality and thoughts of some people who dont feel the program works".....His reply "But it does Mum:!!!!!......

From his own words that says it all really!

He wants to post his own thoughts on here tonight when he gets home.

As for those OTHERS....This is a SUPPORT line DORE friends!!

Kristy

Kristy

 your son sound lovely, and yes we all need to be here for each other, it is more important than anything else atm.

Moderator,

I agree that these discussions should not be happening on Dore Talk which is a forum for clients to discuss their Dore experiences and not a platform for discussing research argument. To all those thousands of passionate mums and dads and clients who have actually experienced Dore and seen benefits, arguments over a single experimental study started 7 years ago will seem petty and unimportant.

There has been a lot of anger being vented on those who choose to enter this site and make comments about Dore's success based entirely on the reading of a single study (not actually conducted by Dore but by two previously unrelated academics), never visiting a Dore centre or talking with Dore clients and then making inferences about how effective Dore might be.

However, love them or loathe them, studies are what are used in the currency of science and scientists will not listen to anything else. However things are more complicated than this and I am afraid political, academic and theoretical positioning does not allow a level playing field for new science and innovations to have a fair hearing. I can tell you all that the two highly respected professors who were recruited to examine Dore back in 2001 are extremely dismayed about how their fellow scientists have attacked their study design and their conclusions. It seems to me that this sledgehammer approach has been orchestrated to stop these scientists working any further with Dore and stop others doing the same for fear of suffering the same abuse.

Luckily a philanthropist in the USA who has personally seen and experienced Dore has recruited 14 of the worlds top scientists to design and conduct a 2 year study examining Dore, medications and reading support systems. Published papers will be appearing soon in some of the top journals around the world outlining the science behind our cerebellar theory and discussions around the study design. It will, I am certain, become the gold standard against which all other studies in this industry will be modelled on and compared to.

A final point which I feel I must deal with is to correct any misunderstanding which relates to the National Reading Panel study I discussed previously. This document is 449 pages long and examines data from around 1000 studies on reading intervention. The panel was convened in 1999 by the director of the Institute for Child Health in the USA to examine the various teaching methods used to teach all children how to read. Thus most of the data relates to 'normally' developing readers and comments on how different phonics and other programmes are effective in this group. However the panel also examined the impact of the same support systems in children described as either disabled or poor readers. It is quite clear (and this has been remarked on by Professor Nicolson in the Balsall study publications) that these same support systems which work well in normally developing readers do not fare so well in the reading disabled groups (of which dyslexia will form a large proportion of). Having read the entire document it is apparent that these teaching systems have a window of opportunity when used in children under the age of 7. Even then the effectiveness of these teaching systems (phonemic awareness, systematic phonics and phonics instruction) is much lower than that seen in normally developing readers. Beyond this age the evidence suggests that such interventions alone have an even more limited effect and are often ineffective in remediating reading disability.

The point of this explanation is to show that there has been a comprehensive and independent examiniation of the very best studies examining various types of reading intervention in children of various ages with reading disabilities and the overwhelming evidence suggests that such interventions do not work well. As you all know Dore see clients only from the age of 7 so if our clients are still unable to read at an age appropriate level by then then it is really too late for teaching systems, including all the various phonics programmes, to work. This is why it angers me when i see scientists telling people using Dore to go get these various support interventions which are proven to work. This goes against the prevailing evidence and just confirms to me that these people are prepared to protect their own theories and reseach work rather than concede than new approaches to helping children with specific learning issues overcome their disabilities. Despite the arguments over published data I know that Dore is having a huge impact on learning and is changing the way children and adults attending the Dore programme are able to learn and respond to good teaching interventions be they phonological, visual or any other approach. That is why I am here and why I will stay supporting this approach. 

Thank you Doctor Roy.  There have been hints that new research was coming out soon so it's great to have some more info.

Psyduck -  May I ask you a couple of questions?  I've read quite a few of your posts now and you often allude to having been put through various therapies as a child including, if memory serves, tossing beanbags.  You obviously feel you got no benefit from these therapies but how can you be sure?  You've also used yourself as proof that dyspraxics can go to college and achieve things that anyone else can, but you are hardly a good example for non-intervention if what you say is true.  The statistics published in the journal on the Dyspraxia Foundation website shows 40% of adult dyspraxics are not in employment and the statistics for dyspraxics in prison or with alcohol/drug abuse problems are equally alarming.  I'm hopeful that everything that I'm doing for my son will keep him from becoming one of these statistics, just as your parents did everything they could.  Are you sure the reason you have been successful is because of, rather than in spite, the interventions your parents undertook on your behalf?

My second question is this... if you had a child with dyspraxia what would you do for them?  As an adult with dyspraxia who has also studied LDs you should have a unique oversight.

Thanks, MACC 

To the moderator,

I agree this isn't really the place. To that end, I've repeatedly asked Dr Rutherford to discuss concerns elsewhere. However, I am also not happy that Dr Rutherford mis-representing the research to this extent is 'constructive' or 'supportive'. To this end, I've issued Dr Rutherford with an open invitation to take this debate to my blog rather than continue it on here, to which I hope he'll respond.

A quick reply to everyone I've cross-posted with...

Academics don't live in ivory towers. Most of them work with children with SpLDs every day, many of them are parents themselves, & many of them have particular reasons for wanting to study SpLDs from having seen what they can do.

I don't think parents are 'fooling themselves' into noticing improvements, indeed I think there are sound reasons why children who complete the Dore programme might well do better than those who don't. But without research you can't tell how well one intervention works compared to another, or how to make them better, or  what works best for who. Parents who think this works should be asking for the research too, that's the only way it could get into schools & the way to make it work better.

Specifically to reply to MACC's question about me - I did quite a few interventions when I was under ~13, after that my family got a bit complicated so that all stopped. Obviously being that age I can't remember all the details of exactly what was used. I didn't really start to get on well at school & socially until I was about 16-17, after spending my GCSE years (14-16, usually spent preparing for final exams at the end of compulsory education in the UK) mostly out of mainstream school, sometimes in hospital, and definitely not recieving any SpLD treatment. I can't prove that there wasn't a four-year delayed effect, but I can point to lots of things which changed around the time life started getting better which seem a rather more likely cause.

I'm a bit wary of 'doom & gloom' stats about what happens to people with SpLDs, for the reason that those with obvious problems functioning are more likely to get a diagnosis, and for a lot of this work there's problems separating environmental causes - eg people in prisons may have reading difficulties due to having had less education for all sorts of reasons, not just dyslexia. Also, some people with SpLDs will be more likely to have other difficulties (dyspraxia particulary so), so it's not as simple as that a child in a mainstream school with no other issues will be X% more likely to end up unemployed than their classmates. I don't deny that there are problems, but as always it's more complicated than people make out.

I don't advocate non-intervention (indeed I'm wondering about training as an Ed Psych after a few years experience). I'm not yet qualified to answer your second question 'professionally', so this is about what's worked for me & others I know.

First up, a computer! I spent a few years learning to touch-type (Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing), my brother uses DragonDictate speech recognition, and for reading some people I know use JAWS text-to-speech, but my laptop really is one thing I could not do academic work without. A voice recorder for taking notes in class. Some sort of diary system (I use my computer & reminders to my phone) is invaluable for managing life & learning to plan stuff (I'm still not brilliant at this, but it reminds me to do things like shop before I run out of food).

Exercise (yes really, you did just hear me saying that!). I'm a keen long-distance runner, and though I'll never be fast & get lots of bruises it's made a huge  difference to my ability to cope with life in general, it's been a good way to make friends, and it's helped with the dyspraxia in that though I'm still wonky at some stuff I can keep up with friends just by being fitter than them. Helps me cope with various sensory weirdness, & also good for depression.

Growing up & getting out of compulsory school. I know, not something you can do much about (though I have done a bit of home-schooling for both me & brother, & taught home-schooled children). But life got *so* much easier when I was allowed to do stuff I wanted to do with people who were interested in being there, instead of just going through things I'm bad at all day every day.

Social & emotional support: I found various 'hobby' groups very useful when I was small - stuff like bird-watching, bell-ringing, my brother did geology & Old Latin for a bit... I might have been the youngest there by a good 20-30 years at times, but it wasn't school, people would talk to me sensibly about interesting stuff, and I got a chance to do things I enjoyed for once. Guides, Scouts etc work for some people. Studying Psychology has also been quite useful in terms of working out how people tick, & Drama classes for working on things like how to make eye contact. 

From an Ed Psych angle - speech therapy was quite useful, friends have found occupational therapy helpful (looking out how to organise themselves & cope with daily living, mostly). Getting my recurrent glue ear sorted out also helped a lot 'cos I was a very late talker, & it's always suggested to check for sight & hearing impairments in SpLDs. Mentoring - I've also done this for other people & both ways have been helpful for me. Trying to find a *point* to anything I particularly want to improve rather than exercises for their own sake has always been a big help - I'm trying to learn the guitar ATM, partly to help with fine motor skills, but wanting to play the guitar is a bigger motivator when it comes down to actually practicing. I've found Cognitive Behavioural Therapy quite useful, though it's probably not something you could start with a child younger than maybe 13+. Social Stories for ASD brother. He'll still find it easier to talk over the computer than face-to-face at times if it's something difficult.

That's what has worked for me (main diagnosis dyspraxia), & a bit from my younger brother (ASD, dyspraxia, dysgraphia). As I said, I'm not an Ed Psych & it's not any sort of 'official' recommendation. 

Dr. Roy, I assume your time is valuable, particularly your time online. I know that it takes a lot of off-forum time to find answers to retort to debates, and I hope I speak for the other Dore participants and parents that your time here has been and is appreciated here on the forum sharing with us your persectives on Dore and real life in the here and now, not arguing over past research and/or studies that don't have any bearing on the bulk of us here on the forum at the moment. 

Thanks for being here.   

“We need to be mature enough to look at the past experiences through areas like anecdotal evidence to decide on a treatment. Not all evidence published is biased, it is how you look at it positive/negative

If you wait for evidence you will never get started, collect the practical experiences to discover what works and doesn't and then you have a basis to work on”.

His words had a ring of truth here and struck a cord for me with the continual debate about research and the anecdotal evidence that us parents provide as to the effectiveness of Dore. If one eminent professor can see the sense of it then why can’t others? Ellie XXX

Too true Miss Ellie.  Look at all the medicines that are based on things that were observed to work through centuries (long before there were scientific studies) but passed down as folklore.  

Psyduck, thanks for answering me in such detail.  I'm always worried there is something I could be doing to help my son that I am missing.   However it irks me when occupational therapy is rolled out as a possible treatment. People who have not been in the system continue to fail to realize how little of this is made available to our children.  My son (dsypraxic) has been given only two blocks of occupational therapy over 5 years (1 hour a week for 6 weeks).  A total of 12 hours of occupational therapy since he started school.  How could that possibly change anything for him?  I was in each case sent away with a bunch of suggestions for further things to do with him in a totally unstructured way - not even written down. 

Dore has given us the structure, a set of exercises and a discipline that is never going to come from occupational therapy as I've experienced it.  In addition, Dore addresses the eye muscles which I'm not aware of occupational therapy even considering.  My son who is nine and has been on Dore for 3 months would happily tell you that he is now finding it alot easier to read at length because he's "not getting lost on the page anymore".  

I'm a believer in the other benefits Dore can confer as well and am looking forward to the new research as I'm sure it will prove us Dore mums right.

Mac 

MACC - my experience also with the OT and the system in general. Dore is the best thing we've come across. The structure works well with Harry.

On the reading, Harry still hates it, but I got a couple of books from the library - one about a boy wanting to be a Rock Star (Harry loves his music) and when I looked at it, it is a Barrington Stoke book (didn't realise at the time). I went up last night to turn Harry's light out, and he said he was really enjoying it, and could he read 2 or 3 more pages to me. How could I possibly refuse!