A short break from your usual Holford coverage to discuss some news about the Dore ‘cure’ for dyslexia, ADHD and a load of other things. Dorothy Bishop recently published a paper showing that the evidence for Dore as a treatment for dyslexia and ADHD is woefully inadequate (it’s also suggested as a treatment for ASDs). Lots of newspapers have ran lots of ‘positive’ stories about the Dore ‘cure’ – but they haven’t found time to cover Bishop’s scathing analysis of Dore research. This is a bad thing: if the media runs ‘positive’ stories about ‘miracle cures’ – but fails to run updates when they are shown to be neither cures nor miraculous – this could make it easier for expensive, unproven ‘cures’ to be sold to their readers. On 3/10/07, I therefore contacted the Guardian, Mail, Manchester Evening News, Times and Telegraph to make sure they knew about this new information. Not one of them even responded to my e-mails.
This took me quite a while to do: most people probably wouldn’t be as obsessive determined to see this through as I was. I really thought that – by putting so much time into this – I would persuade at least some of the papers I spoke to to run the story. However – despite phoning and e-mailing all the papers below – the only response I’ve had is an ‘out of office’ autoreply (of course people talked to me when I phoned them, but often seemed keen to get me off the phone ASAP; I could almost hear the boredom in some voices). Apparently, ‘miracle cure for children’ stories are news; ‘miracle cure lacks evidence of efficacy’ stories are not.
I’ll list the papers I contacted below, and explain why I think their coverage of Dore is – as it stands – inadequate. I’d hope that some may still pick up on this story, but frankly I doubt it.
Readers were told that “Millions of people with dyslexia have been given hope by a set of simple exercises that experts say can cure the disorder…A new study found the revolutionary treatment transformed the reading and writing skills of children with dyslexia.” However, the Mail have chosen not to tell their readers about Bishop’s demonstration that the study in question provided only very poor evidence for Dore’s efficacy.
Manchester Evening News
The paper reported that “Schoolchildren with learning difficulties have been “cured” thanks to a special exercise programme designed to stimulate the brain” and ran a positive article on Dore’s “Magic cure for dyslexia?” Prof Bishop has posted on the comments thread for the latter article, but her analysis of Dore is not discussed anywhere else on the website. When I spoke to the paper, they were concerned that criticisms of Dore’s evidence-base were not of local interest (although they apparently believe that stories about its ‘magic’ efficacy are).
Guardian
Readers of the paper were informed that “A revolutionary exercise programme for children and adults with dyslexia and similar learning difficulties was hailed as a major breakthrough last night, as academics said the therapy was working.” Wendy Berliner states that “An experiment using [Dore] exercise in Warwickshire has yielded staggering results. What does it take to impress ministers?” Apparently, “Researchers who have monitored [Dore] treatment for dyslexia today hailed it “as close to a cure as there is”. The Guardian also reports cricketer Paul Nixon’s claims to have benefited from Dore treatment.
The Guardian did – I should acknowledge – run an excellent column by Ben Goldacre, criticising the evidence-base for Dore. However, one column analysing the bad science of Dore doesn’t make up for a load of articles praising the evidence for the treatment.
Times (and Sunday Times)
Coverage in the Times and Sunday Times has, at least, been a little more critical. They do report that “The [Dore] group soon began to show significant improvements in reading, comprehension and writing. After six months the control group was introduced into the exercise programme and similar results were observed. Researchers also noticed that the children’s sporting ability and self-confidence improved.” However, at least they also note that “Dyslexia charities greeted the results with caution and warned parents against expecting the commercially developed treatment, known as DDAT (dyslexia, dyspraxia and attention disorder treatment), to provide “a miracle cure”. They pointed out that the treatment, developed by a private company based in Warwickshire and costing £1,500 for a full course lasting one year, has not been shown to work for all people with dyslexia or related conditions.” Caroline Scott’s piece on dyspraxia considers some of the criticisms of Dore and the research behind it. The Times also ran two critical articles on Dore/DDAT.
That said, the Times has also ran several positive pieces discussing Dore (drawing largely on anecdotal reports). Also, while Zoe Brannan’s article on Dore considers some of the criticisms of Dore, the article ends by dismissing such criticisms with a quote from Wynford Dore’s daughter: “Twenty-five years of my life were wasted. At that time, I felt there was no hope for me…The company doesn’t make anything, and he still doesn’t take a salary. People ask me, ‘What can you do to pay him back?’ And I say, ‘I’ve done the only thing he really wanted. I’ve survived’.”
In other words, the Times’ coverage of Dore was better than the other papers I’ve looked at. However, this is a case of being best in a rather shoddy crowd – rather than being any kind journalistic exemplar.
Telegraph
The Telegraph told its readers that, in one study, “The [Dore] group showed such a swift improvement that teachers even said they believed that parents were doing their children’s homework…After six months the control group was also introduced into the exercise programme so it too could benefit. The researchers re-screened the children after the treatment and all were shown to be free of dyslexic symptoms. Remedial help in school was no longer necessary.” Readers also learned about how “Brain exercises ‘improve’ behaviour of criminals” and how Dore exercises allegedly took Tom Rees to the rugby world cup.
To be fair, the Telegraph does have John Clare answering a reader’s question by advising them to “waste no more money on DDAT – or Dore Achievement Centres, as they now prefer to be known”. It also quotes Susan Treadwell of the British Dyslexia Association saying (right at the end of a positive article on Dore research) that “I would be cautious in hailing it as a miracle cure”. This very limited critical coverage does not, however, engage with the serious problems with the research on Dore – the coverage is therefore inadequate.
Conclusions
It therefore seems like ‘miracle cure appears not to work’ stories are seen as far less newsworthy than ‘miracle cure saves children and cute fluffy bunnies’ stories (although some newspapers are better than others). Even when someone like me is sad enough to contact a number of newspapers – explaining what the ‘negative’ story is and why they should cover it – this is ignored.
I’m sure that this will all be a great thing for those who are trying to sell ‘miracle cures’ to the British public. However, it is more problematic for those of us who need to work out what treatments work, and what treatments don’t. Can the mainstream media start offering more balanced coverage of such ‘cures’, or will those wanting reliable information need to look elsewhere?
58 Comments
October 16, 2007 at 8:49 am
I find this really quite sad. It might be worth pointing out the these journalists that the NUJ code of conduct states that members:
3. Does her/his utmost to correct harmful inaccuracies
I think you could convincingly argue that by not correcting the positive reporting of Dore they are doing harm to society.
Of course the NUJ are as firm as the SoH when it comes to enforcing their code of conduct.
October 16, 2007 at 10:37 am
“…Can the mainstream media start offering more balanced coverage of such ‘cures’, or will those wanting reliable information need to look elsewhere?”
I wonder if it would make a difference if significant numbers of people could be motivated to send letters to the editors of newspapers who run these kinds of stories? To make things easier for us time-poor or plain lazy folk, perhaps some public spirited bloggers could supply a brief list of points which should be covered in such letters, plus e-addresses. Or is this hopelessly naive?
Amnesty International often refers to a ‘culture of impunity’ as one of the root causes of violations: if abusers are never called to account, the abuse just goes on. Perhaps a culture of impunity also operates regarding misleading reporting of health scares and miracle cures?
October 16, 2007 at 12:43 pm
In answer to the comments about Dore, my daughter is one of the success stories and I do not see the treatment as a gimmick.
If you had dispaired about your child who was three years behind her peers at school, unable to take in the simplest of tasks. Have traites of autism and be told that the school could only do so much for her and she would struggle with learning as well as her social skills into adulthood.
She commenced Dore in 2004 and completed it in 2005 my daughter is not the child who started the treatment she was on a par in learning with her peers following the treatment and has devloped into a fully functional teenager who can hold her own and can go for whatever she wants to out of life. To us mothers who have seen the changes then yes to us it is a miracle cure!!!!
October 16, 2007 at 12:45 pm
Perhaps it is because of the letters they receive from truly happy customers, that is swinging the balance?
Bishops comments are critiscims of the research. Frankly we need more research, as it clearly works for many.
Many Occupational Therapists ,depending where you live, use very similar exercises to great effect with LD children, the problem there being that with their rediculously long waiting lists. Their services privately are comparible to Dore, but Dore is run specifically for LD. Of course it’s not a “miracle cure”, LD’s are not a diseases and a 12 months+ treatment which takes comitment clearly does not constitute a miracle. My son has made exceptional ground up, especially with his Speech and Language, the S&L therapist commenting that she had NEVER seen such accelerated progress in 6 months and turned to me with a wink telling me “He’s on Ritalin isn’t he?”. Well no actually he’s not. His writing, organisational skills, reading are catching up. I await more progress.
Dore is most definitley a bonus to society and I would have been at my wits end without them.
- A very happy mother of a dyslexic, dyspraxic, and (probably) ADD inattentive 9yr old son.
October 16, 2007 at 1:37 pm
Lesley and Missellie- glad your kids are doing so well. However, without decent quality research, it’s not possible to know whether that was down to Dore, to the support you’ve been giving them, to the extra attention, etc.
To take an anecdote of my own, I started reading relatively late, and when I did so my reading abilities came on very quickly. If I had been doing Dore or similar, I might well have attributed it to that. But I wasn’t. People – especially children – can develop in stops and starts. This makes it easy to get the impression that ineffective – or even harmful – treatments are helping their development. I could provide lots of examples of glowing stories about miraculous treatments, which good quality research later proved to be useless – see for example secretin for autism.
Dore is marketed as a “Proven Long Term Drug-Free Solution” – this is completely inappropriate without the research to prove this. It’s wrong for newspapers to hail Dore as a cure without the research to back this up, and then fail to cover articles that point out the inadequacies in research on Dore.
One more thing – Bishop doesn’t ‘just’ criticise research on Dore, she also raises questions about whether the putative mechanism of action is plausible:
October 16, 2007 at 3:04 pm
To make things easier for us time-poor or plain lazy folk, perhaps some public spirited bloggers could supply a brief list of points which should be covered in such letters, plus e-addresses.
Thanks, that’s an interesting idea. In brief, you can find a summary of many of the relevant points here. In short, the research on Dore has been poor quality, and the putative mechanism for action is implausible or barely plausible.
In terms of e-mail addresses, a bit reluctant to post here for fear of spambot harvesting. However, a quick look at the paper websites should find you details of e-mail/phone contacts, if you’re wanting to get in touch :)
October 16, 2007 at 3:15 pm
My own sister was a late reader and came on as you did, but she had none of the other traits of LD’s i.e. poor short term memory, S&L deficits, organisation skills, writing, auditory processing deficits, visual processing deficits. Dyslexia is so much more than poor reading skills so you cannot really compare your reading skills to that of a child with Dyslexia. What about the speech and languge problems you seem to be ignoring the comment made by an experienced S&L therapist, she was amazed and had NEVER seen this before. The cerebellum is linked to languge centers. You seem to be ignoring the fact that the other balance senses can compensate for the lack of vestibular balance i.e. somatosensory visual. This reasearch has been around for years thanks to an OT in USA but it was pooh poohed then, by so called experts. Dyslexia is very complex and comes in many forms not all Dyslexics can be helped and Dore does not take on those who do not have fit the crteria of Cerebellum Development Delay.
How come atheletes with Dyslexia who should have perfect coordination balance and motor skills can benefit from the programme then? I just wish these “experts” would come out of their ivory towers, stop shuffling papers and speak to the real sufferers of LD’s and their families.
October 16, 2007 at 3:53 pm
My own sister was a late reader and came on as you did, but she had none of the other traits of LD’s i.e. poor short term memory, S&L deficits, organisation skills, writing, auditory processing deficits, visual processing deficits.
I did, and in some areas still do. But I have developed some abilities that might – given these deficits – be surprising. This has happened without interventions such as Dore.
The reason that I did not respond to your comment re. speech therapist is that – while I’m glad your child improved so quickly – I very much doubt that such anecdotes can be generalised. Such glowing reports also come when treatments that are know to be useless/harmful were tried – e.g. see this anecdote about secretin as an autism treatment
I just wish these “experts” would come out of their ivory towers, stop shuffling papers and speak to the real sufferers of LD’s and their families.
Most psychologiests in this area (including, iirc, Bishop) do work with people with LDs. More to the point, if Dore want to be able to sell their treatment as a ‘cure’, why don’t they pay for some good quality research to test its efficacy? After all, a good study would not cost all that much more than the poor quality research that Bishop critiqued…
October 16, 2007 at 4:20 pm
Lesley and Missellie, I must echo johnhw’s comments too. The trouble with methods such as that used by Dore is that they lack a scientific rationale for their techniques and are reluctant to subject their method to critical analysis. While I have every sympathy for you and your children and understand that resources are scarce when it comes to OTs that is no reason not to be wary of unproven techniques, especially those that charge money and offer fantastical promises.
October 16, 2007 at 4:31 pm
So your Dyslexic ? Should have said earlier, I would have expected more understanding, but there are different severities of Dyslexia, of course.
My son decodes well above his age, but ask him to read and the words and accuracy fluency and comprehension are poor. When and if this kicks in I will really shout from the treetops. Please don’t patronise me by saying what I see is merely something that could have happened anyway due to maturation, and that your pleased for us. My son has been working hard for several years on his reading, luckily Dore is looking after the other symptoms. If I had just sat back. he would be even further behind.
I have first hand experience of Dore where you have a few badly designed research papers and a Bishop “critique”.
I think we will have to agree to differ on this.
But be aware there are many more like myself who are ready to send “our “letters to the newspapers, and a few who like myself are public spirited bloggers.
PS I believe there is more research going on as we speak into Dore, I believe it to be very costly. I for one would not want my son in the control group. There’s loads of reasearch into the cerebellum,cognition, etc just google scholar it :)
That’s why many OT’s offer the same sort of exercises on the NHS, unfortunatley they don’t work soley with LD’s and the waiting list can be enourmous.
October 16, 2007 at 4:38 pm
Thanks Gimpy, but if a lesser version is available on the Nhs why are we called gullible parents for wanting it quicker and privately? It is no more expensive than a private OT and it is a professionally run outfit, with physiotherapists and teachers as their employees.
Dore has been around a good few years and is now being “sold” more by word of mouth, by pleased parents.
Yes we need more research, but I have a feeling that research, being so slow, is being left behind.
October 16, 2007 at 6:58 pm
Lesley- there’s a huge range of treatments/cures sold for LD’s (not all targeted as dyslexics, I should say). Everything from brain gym to body brushing to different variants of nutritional therapy to NLP to INPP to NACD to homeopathy to osteopathy to sacral cranial therapy. Even if I were looking for a ‘cure’ at this point, I’d likely be skint from the pricing on these things and dead from old age before I’d been able to try all the treatments sold for LD’s.
Most of these treatments have anecdotes of success that they claim couldn’t have been possible without said treatments. However, it is exceptionally hard to know whether or not the treatment was responsible for these successes, without good quality research (e.g. the use of a control group receiving a treatment like ‘conventional’ OT). Such research is also needed to allow people with LDs and their families to make an informed choice re. whether or not to use various approaches (although some of the approaches listed above have already been tested well enough that there is good evidence that they are no more than placebos, while some approaches also raise safety concerns).
Re. research being slow, Dore has certainly been around for long enough to have carried out one (probably more) decent quality studies. If those discussed by Bishop hadn’t done so badly, there could already be some good research on Dore – doing research well doesn’t take much longer than making a hash of it…
October 16, 2007 at 7:35 pm
Research is needed we all agree on that but who will do the research may I ask?
Dore has done it’s own research which is more than others have done, but their findings were found to be floored.
If all the critics of Dore’s research would do their own, maybe then they too will find out why it works for so many. Dore want independent research like the government itself to undertake it which shows their commitment and belief in it.
In the meantime Dore will try to help all that it can within the prison sevice and for us who have lost faith in ever seeing any help within the schools.
As Lesey said while the research remains slow and the arguments rage on about Dore. Many parents will continue to put their children through the professional hands of Dore and reap the benefits.
October 16, 2007 at 8:34 pm
Research is needed we all agree on that but who will do the research may I ask?
Dore make claims like ‘proven’ for their treatment. They should therefore fund the initial research to test whether it works or not (well, they should have done the research before making the claims, but anyway…) If Dore were to fund one or two studies, they would have no trouble finding academic researchers prepared to undertake the research; they would then ‘just’ need to make sure that the supervision was in place to ensure better quality research this time.
Many parents will continue to put their children through the professional hands of Dore and reap the benefits.
Many people will continue to go through Dore. Without decent quality research, though, we can’t know if Dore is useful to them, or how useful it is.
October 17, 2007 at 1:44 pm
I have Dyspraxia myself, and a very strong family history of SpLDs, so I can assure you I do not lack practical experience in the area. I am doing my undergraduate research project testing some aspects of alternative diagnosis & treatments for Dyslexia. People do not research SpLDs in a vacuum, and many researchers will have a particular interest from their personal and family background. No-one wants to ’suppress’ treatments which work. That would be ridiculous – what motivation do you suggest for such a thing?
Research papers are a way of organising and measuring the first-hand experience of many people who have tried a particular treatment. If you deny research evidence, you are denying the first-hand experiences of everyone who took part in those trials. Your experience is important, but the combined experience of many people is a more reliable basis form which to draw conclusions – they are not ‘just’ research papers.
It’s common for children with SpLDs to make rapid progress at times (so do most children). SpLDs are difficult to diagnose accurately, and as developmental disorders, it is hardly unexpected that they alter with development. My parents were told that I would never learn to ride a bike, but 12 years after that I was placed in an Ironman triathlon and worked in a bicycle shop. This wasn’t due to any specific treatment, just the normal variability in course of developmental disorders – some children do grow out of some aspects (though I am still very dyspraxic in some areas, just not bicycle-riding).
I completely agree that more research into what works for SpLDs would be a good idea. Tell you what – I’ll graduate in Psychology this summer, and I’m already doing my undergraduate research into SpLDs, including some evaluation on Dore. Would you like to fund a PhD at my uni for research into Dore? I’d happily take it up.
Would it be too nasty to point out that it’s the posters who claim to have found a ‘cure’ for Dyslexia who have the poorest spelling and grammar?
October 17, 2007 at 2:40 pm
Yes it would, as Dyslexia tends to run in families, but you should know that.
October 17, 2007 at 2:48 pm
I also have a fellowship and am chartered in my field of work , so trying to tell me that I’m dumb and shouldn’t be listened to, just because you “almost” have a degree, won’t wash. Get the degree first as your results with decide wether your PhD material.
Is that too nasty?
October 17, 2007 at 2:51 pm
Woops spelling mistake well I’m not a trained in typing am I? Or perhaps I’m dyslexic! As I explained previously there is no cure for Dyslexia it is not a disease.
October 17, 2007 at 3:19 pm
what a load of twaddle!!! never in my life have I heard so much crap from people who have never even attended a Dore centre let alone completeds the programme!! missellie, lesley..WE KNOW it works… i think arguing with these ‘critics’ is like winning the special olympics.. Dore Rocks !!!FACT!!!!!!! if Dore paid for research then they would say ‘ well of course its in their favor they paid for it’ we have the living, walking, talking proof it works…they can call me gullable, misguided or whatever they want, but it wont alter the fact that my son is like a different child and doing so well now!! nothing to do with extra tuition or anything else (i know cos he never had any!!)Dore is a fantastic programme. DEAL WITH IT!!!!!
October 17, 2007 at 7:12 pm
lesley- I don’t think anyone said you were dumb and shouldn’t be listened to, did they?
As I explained previously there is no cure for Dyslexia it is not a disease.
That’s interesting. So can we agree, at least, that it’s wrong for journalists to describe Dore as a ‘cure’?
eraina- are you saying that I can’t read research papers about Dore without having gone through the programme? Why? It’s very common for people to read about treatments that they haven’t tried, and use this as a way to decide whether or not to use or recommend that treatment.
i think arguing with these ‘critics’ is like winning the special olympics
Classy. I can’t quite figure out which group(s) you’re insulting most, but it’s sweet that you felt able to do so without worrying about details like coherence, spelling or grammar.