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THIS TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT. BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS THE BBC CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY.
FACE THE FACTS: The Dore Programme
Presenter: John Waite
TRANSMISSION: FRIDAY 15TH AUGUST 20081230-1300 BBC RADIO 4
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PROMOTIONAL ADVERTISEMENT
If I had to describe Dore in one word it would life changing.
Life changing.
Life changing.
I've been on the Dore Programme for 18 months and it's changed my life.
WAITE
Part of some promotional material from Dore Group Australasia Limited - a company set up by Welsh born multi-millionaire Wynford Dore which offered - at a price - a programme designed to treat the underlying causes of dyslexia, dyspraxia, and attention deficit disorders.
PROMOTIONAL ADVERTISEMENT
The programme that is so simple and easy to use, can make such a big difference to these kids.
I now have the confidence to actually go out into the world and achieve my dreams.
WAITE
For many people though such dreams have been dashed because two months ago Dore Group Australasia Limited went into liquidation - owing around 13 million Australian dollars, or £6 million. Giles Woodgate is handling the liquidation and, speaking to the Australian broadcaster ABC said those who paid 4 to 5 thousand dollars to join the Dore programme are unlikely to get that money back.
WOODGATE
There are a lot of them who paid money not so long ago and received little or no service whatsoever and that programme will not be provided by the company anymore. I think the directors of the company realised there was a crisis when they had a 420,000 dollar payroll to meet for the month of May and only had 90,000 dollars in the bank.
WAITE
This week we investigate the Dore Programme - which has been heralded as a miracle cure for dyslexia and other learning difficulties. Despite charging each client around £2,000, the UK and American arms have also gone out of business, leaving thousands of, mostly children, without the treatment their parents paid for. Treatment, as we'll be revealing, mired in controversy and misleading claims, hard-nosed sales practices and at least on one occasion pure invention. This from an organisation which at its peak claimed to have helped 40,000 people across three continents.
ACTUALITY
Ready, steady, 30 seconds, go.
A America, B Brazil, C Cameroon...
WAITE
Ten-year-old Archie, from Essex, is on the special needs register because he suffers from dyslexia and is three years behind with his reading. Twice a day he carries out these 10 minute exercises as part of the Dore Programme, using a giant ball - the size of a Space Hopper - or jumping on one leg as he lists countries alphabetically.
ACTUALITY
Stop.
ARCHIE
I have to get on the ball and then jump and then I have to go on the left leg and balance my left leg for 20 seconds.
EMMA
He was never disruptive...
WAITE
Emma, Archie's mother.
EMMA
Sometimes I think that went against him because if he had have been disruptive he might have got more help but unfortunately he got the bare minimum of help at school. And I just felt because he was giving his all as parents we had to try and find something to help him.
WAITE
Emma's situation isn't unique. Many parents despair at the level of support provided in state schools and look elsewhere. Veronica Bidwell, is an independent educational psychologist.
BIDWELL
You have an eight or nine year old who's not yet reading, his friends are all reading, he comes home, he's frustrated, he's miserable - he doesn't want to go to school - I think we all feel miserable on behalf of our children if things are not going right for them. And literacy is such a vital tool. Children that come out of school unable to read successfully have their life chances so enormously cut down. But almost on a weekly basis you can pick the paper up and bingo there is a new cure for dyslexia.
WAITE
A view backed up by Dorothy Bishop, professor of developmental neuropsychology at Oxford University.
BISHOP
We're talking about parents who are both vulnerable because they're often quite desperate and also very guilty and I talk to some parents who say you know the more you're asked to spend money to pay for a treatment for your child the more you feel it absolves your guilt a bit. This gives them an opportunity to feel there's something that they can do.
WAITE
They can turn to the Dore Programme. It's based on a theory that gathered scientific pace during the late 1990s - that dyslexia is caused by a malfunctioning of the cerebellum - the so-called "little brain" at the back of the head which controls a person's balance and co-ordination.
BISHOP
The theory itself that the cerebellum is implicated is a theory that is reasonable and it's taken with reasonable seriousness by scientists in the field. The problem is that it doesn't follow that doing these physical exercises is going to change those parts of the cerebellum that are important for things like learning to read. There's absolutely no evidence of this kind of generalisation from one skill to another. And indeed if it did work you should expect to see that any child who's been trained in ballet or ping pong or skateboarding should not have a high risk for dyslexia because these are all the sorts of exercises that train balance and hand eye coordination, in fact they'd have a bit more fun I think if you gave them a skateboard than if you gave them some of these exercises.
WAITE
Professor Bishop is unconvinced.
This is how the Dore website explains the Programme.
CLIP FROM WEBSITE
Cerebella developmental delay occurs when the neural pathways linking the cerebrum or "thinking brain" and the cerebellum aren't fully developed. When this happens, the cerebellum can't process information quickly and the development of language and decoding skills necessary for reading and writing is impaired. Making the cerebellum function better helps remedy the symptoms of learning difficulties - and can help all kinds of people become better learners.
WAITE
The man behind the programme, Wynford Dore, was a successful businessman who made millions selling industrial paint and whose own daughter, Susie, was diagnosed with severe dyslexia when she was nine. After investigating several forms of treatment, including drugs, Mr Dore became convinced that an exercise based approach was the answer.
Building on the work of, amongst others, psychology professor Rod Nicholson from the University of Sheffield. He too believes problems with the cerebellum affect physical co-ordination and learning skills. But postulating that exercises can help a malfunctioning cerebellum was he says ambitious and unproven.
NICHOLSON
The rather interesting thing from a theoretical point of view is that Dore's exercises intended to improve your physical coordination by sort of standard exercises designed to stimulate the cerebellum, whereas in fact the reading related stuff tends to go more through the language area of the cerebellum which are different regions. And so it was pretty much an open issue - whether the physical training would actually improve the cerebellum function.
WAITE
After handing over their money, clients would be assessed at one of Dore's centres. Undergoing a range of tests to identify whether they were suitable; including checking their balance as well as their reading and writing skills. And then a tailor-made series of exercises would be designed to stimulate the cerebellum.
For up to 18 months, normally, clients would use an exercise ball like Archie's, a flying saucer shaped wobble board to practise balance, and follow an exercise calendar, with progress checks every six to eight weeks.
The first Dore centre opened in 2000 in Leamington Spa in Warwickshire. At its height there were 13 centres in the UK seeing thousands of people and generating acres of press coverage.
PRESS CLIP
Cure for dyslexia. The Mirror. January 2002
Dyslexic kids cure. The Sun. October 2006
A giant leap for dyslexics. The Guardian. January 2003
ITV devoted a programme to the Dore treatment called "Dyslexia - A Miracle Cure" though the title did have a question mark. In Mr Dore's own book it was Dyslexia - The Miracle Cure. No question mark. And what with the book, and other media coverage, around £3 million worth of new business was generated. Including from Emma, Archie's mum. When she was paid a visit by a Dore Programme Advisor.
EMMA
She had newspaper cuttings saying that we can cure dyslexia. She said to us we would not be able to use the word cure if it wasn't true. She said I can guarantee he will be off the special needs register within one year.
WAITE
So Emma signed up.
EMMA
I just felt like it was a light at the end of a tunnel. We just had to give it a go. I would have always been thinking what if, what if. So we just found the money and Archie started the programme. It seemed like a miracle.
WAITE
It was the thought of selling a miracle like that that attracted experienced salesman Sean Duncan.
DUNCAN
It sounded absolutely awesome to me, where I could do the job that I enjoy doing - going into people's houses, spending time as a salesperson would but actually delivering something that's going to ultimately change their life and change the life of the child.
WAITE
All field sales staff like Mr Duncan were fully trained in the science of the Dore approach, training, he told us, that was excellent. But he became deeply uneasy over the sales training.
DUNCAN
Basically the words they used was to take the parents of the children that we were there to help, to take them into the depths of despair, to say are you aware that your children are probably getting bullied at school, your child doesn't probably get invited to other kids birthday parties and hardly anybody turns up at his.
WAITE
So you had to paint a very gloomy picture?
DUNCAN
Absolutely yes. One, which in all honesty, I wasn't prepared to paint, hence leaving the company.
WAITE
And what was hoped to be the point of this?
DUNCAN
The ultimate point was to come out with a sale, that was the ultimate point.
WAITE
And space age science was used to help win those sales. The Dore programme boasted that it employed a special "posturography" machine - a giant leap for dyslexia sufferers.
PROMOTIONAL ADVERTISEMENT
How we identify an underdeveloped cerebellum - posturography balance test, developed by NASA for astronauts returning from space because they developed temporary dyslexic symptoms.
But when NASA heard about the claim - Houston it appeared had a problem - and this statement appeared on its website.
NASA WEBSITE CLIP
In our experience the prolonged exposure of astronauts to the micro-gravity environment of space flight does not give rise to any physical symptoms or signs that would suggest dyslexia. To the best of our knowledge NASA is not funding or engaging in research concerning dyslexia.
And if the claim about NASA was just plain wrong sales rep Sean Duncan says other claims were also highly questionable.
DUNCAN
Part of what we used to deliver was, that again we were told to deliver, high percentage of people that were in the prisons did have ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia. Again getting the potential customer in tears explaining that to them and you know do you want your child to end up there or are we going to get them on the programme and make sure these things don't happen.
WAITE
They were actually suggesting that prison could be the destination for a child that didn't go on the Dore Programme?
DUNCAN
Effectively yeah. You would certainly imply that statistically say that 80-90% of people that were in prison did show symptoms of ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia and was awful, getting parents who were obviously genuinely concerned and then to turn up and you know have them believe that all their worst fears were going to come into being unless they were willing to part with two grand basically.
WAITE
Sean Duncan left the company after just four months. And, for the record, none of the parents we've spoken to say they came across quite such heavy handed sales tactics.
Norman Morley, for example, who was only too happy to sign up his son, James, to the programme in March this year.
Mr Morley told us he was particularly impressed by the testimony of former Scottish rugby player and Strictly Come Dancing Star, Kenny Logan, who's appeared in the media many times recounting how going through the Dore programme helped his dyslexia. If it could change his life, Mr Morley thought, maybe it could change James's.
MORLEY
The fact that it was Kenny Logan and he had been on a television programme I thought well if there's something in it it's got to be worthwhile. And I couldn't really see beyond that that there was any great detrimental effect that it would have on it.
WAITE
What Mr Morley didn't see was that Kenny Logan is a director of Dore's parent company - Camden Holdings Limited. So although Mr Logan clearly believed in the effectiveness of the programme, and we are told made no financial gain from his appearances, he was still far from being an independent client. We asked for Mr Logan's comments but none have been forthcoming.
There have been two peer-reviewed studies published examining the effectiveness of the Dore programme - each part funded by the company itself. Professors from Exeter and Sheffield universities looked at 35 junior school children in the Midlands. The first study published in 2003 examined the effect of the Dore treatment on skills including balance, dexterity, eye movement and literacy and concluded it was effective even though a larger study might be needed to confirm the findings.
The second study published in 2006 checked whether improvements remained after the treatment ended and concluded that they did.
According to Mr Dore, speaking in this promotional video, respected academics were lining up behind him.
DORE PROMOTIONAL VIDEO
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 the Dore Programme is getting, you can now justifiable 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.
But a moment not destined to last.
When the results were published in the respected academic journal, Dyslexia, they caused a furore. Seven members of the journal's editorial board resigned over either what they saw as methodological problems with the research or the way the data was used by Wynford Dore to promote his treatment. One of them received a letter threatening legal action after she spoke to the BBC. An attempt to stifle scientific criticism? Not according to Mr Dore who says letters had to be written strongly to those who were making, what he calls, libellous statements. Such tactics haven't silenced Dore's critics, however. Like Dorothy Bishop, Professor of Developmental Neuropsychology at Oxford University. She has a long list of concerns about the research, she told us, including the lack of a continuous control group with which to contrast the success of those on the programme. In fact she calls the study one of the flimsiest she's ever seen.
BISHIP
It had so many problems with it that indeed a colleague of mine who teaches undergraduates was using it as a training exercise of spot the problems. The sort of thing that they were saying on their website and in Wynford Dore's book was, for example, that you could increase reading age three fold, comprehension five fold and writing skills 17 fold. Now on the tests where they compared treated and untreated children nothing of this size was ever seen. What they were referring to here was data from Sats and the sort of thing that they were doing was a very odd kind of statistical voodoo, so that, for example, on a Sats test the typical score for a seven year old is level two and the typical score for a nine year old is level three. So they had children who were tested by this school and the writing score - I've got the figures here - they went from 2.53 at the age of eight, 2.56 at the age of nine, 2.95 at the age of 10. They subtracted each score from the next one and did a division. And because the children hadn't actually made much change between the ages of eight and nine it looked incredibly dramatic that they'd made any change at all by the age of 10. But actually at the age of 10 they were still rather below the level that you would have thought they should have been at the age of nine. This is described as a 17 fold increase in their writing skills. This is the sort of thing they kept doing in this paper that you felt was really a bit disingenuous.
WAITE
But both authors rigorously defend their methodology and stand by their findings. They believe the Dore Programme works, at least for some. One of those authors is Professor of Psychology at Sheffield University Rod Nicholson.
NICHOLSON
Given that the benefits had been shown for the exercise group all the contract group then wanted to participate in the exercise themselves and so we felt it was ethically unjustifiable not to. And so Dore then actually provided his treatment for the control group. So after the two years we had no controls left.
WAITE
But it surely damaged the purity of the study?
NICHOLSON
That's the problem of doing research in the real world, you cannot actually control everything.
WAITE
But isn't it true that the study seemed to show that reading didn't seem to improve?
NICHOLSON
We found initially that some parts of reading improved and things like spelling didn't and when we followed it through two years later we found that the physical coordination was still improved, the mental coordination was still improved. Some of the reading, the Sats related reading, was improved, other parts weren't and the spelling was not improved. So it was a mixed picture on the literacy.
WAITE
It's just that I mean I've spoken to Professor Dorothy Bishop and she talks about this being statistical voodoo, the results of this study.
NICHOLSON
Dorothy Bishop is a severe critic of the approach. I don't think I'd like to say anymore than that.
WAITE
Are you happy, Professor Nicholson, with the way your research is used to promote the Dore method? I mean, for example, in some of their promotional material they're claiming there was a 1700% improvement in writing and a 300% improvement in reading. Are you happy to have your name attached to those sorts of claims, are they true?
NICHOLSON
I think that that's not the most helpful way to display the results.
WAITE
So you're not happy?
NICHOLSON
I am not happy with almost any aspect of the way that the results have been treated, both by the critics and by Dore.
WAITE
Seventeen hundred percent - that's a staggering improvement in writing, if it's true, is it true, is that what you found?
NICHOLSON
It's one way of presenting the results. But the point is that if you have a small very improvement in the writing over one year then it's fairly easy to have a 1700% improvement on the next year.
WAITE
So it's misleading?
NICHOLSON
Yes.
WAITE
The point is Mr Dore was claiming this was a cure on occasion and that's bound to put backs up, isn't it?
NICHOLSON
I, myself, have always said that I felt that was a very unhelpful way of describing it. The reason he did describe it that way is that he was trying to get at the underlying cause, which is in his view the function of the cerebellum and the circuits to which its involved, and he says that if we improve that function in a sense it's cured. I mean that's a legitimate perspective....
WAITE
But a cure - the word cure is a very emotive word isn't it really, surely you're talking about, at best, is improvement?
NICHOLSON
I mean I would be much happier with significant improvement or something or within normal bounds. But I think it's a legitimate to say but there's absolutely no doubt - I completely agree with you - that it has proved unhelpful.
WAITE
Just before this broadcast we received a letter from the headmaster of a school involved in the studies, he says the benefits for those involved in the programme were significant.
But as well as those two academic studies, Mr Dore uses other research to promote his treatment. After pressure from parents to fund the Dore programme, a number of local education authorities for example decided to examine its effectiveness.
And the Dore website claims a study involving Bedfordshire found:
PROMOTIONAL CLIP
Greater progress in the more severely affected children. Up to 300% improved reading progress. Up to 70% average improvement in writing skills. More than 90% improvement in attention skills and 95% showed positive behavioural changes.
Not quite how Bedfordshire LEA interpreted the findings; though, some young people did make significant progress Bedfordshire found there was no secure link between the Dore Programme and improved performance in literacy skills. And it concluded that the programme should be more rigorously proven before being offered to the general public.
Similar results were cited for Warwickshire LEA but they tell us the programme was only suitable for certain children and anyway the report produced on Dore's website is not that from the council's educational psychologist but 'a commercial interpretation of her findings by Dore'.
But the boldest claims perhaps are made for a study in the Anglesey & Gwynedd Local Education Authority area which found a:
PROMOTIONAL CLIP
Four hundred percent improvement in reading progress. Four hundred percent improvement in reading non-words. Five hundred percent improvement in detecting rhyme. One hundred percent of parents said their child benefited and would recommend the programme.
Yet Anglesey and Gwynedd LEA told us the results were:
STATEMENT
Disappointing.
And that, despite some initial improvements..
STATEMENT
It was found that the pupils had not continued to make gains in reading. The improvements they did show were not more than they had shown prior to beginning the Dore Programme. It was originally intended to continue to work with Dore following this project but in view of the disappointing results this was decided against.
The Dore Programme website describes the study as, and I quote, "an independent project which was designed by the Educational Psychology Service for Anglesey and Gwynedd LEAs in conjunction with the Bangor dyslexia unit."
Ann Cooke is the unit's acting director. So did they work "in conjunction" with Dore?
COOKE
No, no. We were not involved in doing any of the testing. My colleague went to the Dore Centre, just to see what was happening because we felt that it was important for us to see what was - what the children that we were teaching were actually doing. But we were not involved in any of the treatment, we were not involved in any of the testing and we were not involved in the follow up.
WAITE
So that's a very misleading statement - "in conjunction with"?
COOKE
It is - it is misleading and we weren't involved in any of the research. As I say, all we did was continue to teach the children.
WAITE
While the rise of the Dore Programme as a treatment for dyslexia and other learning difficulties has been rapid - its demise has been more rapid still. In America, Dore's US arm, has suspended operations. The Australian arm as we heard is in liquidation, and in the UK, administrators have recommended the company be wound up. We've been told the 172 UK staff have little chance of being paid. And around 5,000 UK clients, who're on the programme, are unlikely to get the treatment they paid for or their money back. Instead, they're being offered an online tool to monitor performance and provide access to new exercises.
A new company has now been registered with Wynford Dore as its Director. And he's bought the equipment and intellectual property rights of his former company and is now trading simply as Dore.
Last month "Dore" said it would be inviting clients to follow-up appointments at its HQ in Kenilworth, but only if they've been on the programme for under 12 months, as Emma found out for her son Archie.
EMMA
If we did want to have an assessment it would be at a cost of £129. We've paid £2,000 and I think that's plenty. It should have seen us through to the end.
WAITE
So what does Mr Dore have to say to his critics?
Currently he's busy in America, he told us, and so couldn't give us an interview. But in a statement he says he plans to support all his existing clients to the best of the company's ability and without additional charge to them.
And what of those heavy handed sales techniques? If those claims are true, he said, and inapppropriate techniques were used to pressurise people by his sales force, then it would be scandalous and he would instantly dismiss them - but he has no evidence that this ever happened.
And the statement went on:
STATEMENT
This is an organisation which is genuinely caring towards the issues of learning difficulties and there is ample testimony to that. The files are full with very large numbers of extremely happy clients. The success rate for those completing the programme is over 90%.
On a personal note I have never taken a salary from the company it has been quite the reverse. For the last 10 years I have pumped many millions of pounds into this to make it affordable to as many as possible. Therefore my motives have to be made very clear - they are genuinely focused on helping as many as possible access something that will transform their lives.
WAITE
Regarding that research from education authorities, Mr Dore told us his programme's website contains data from the LEAs exactly as it was originally collected. It was all fully discussed and agreed with the authorities before being used. And as for working "in conjunction" with the Bangor Dyslexia Unit, Mr Dore says that was what he was told and he accepted the information at face value.
And those claims about his programme using technology developed by NASA? I quote: "To my knowledge it never appeared in our promotional literature". Which is strange as it appears in the booklet I have in my hand. |
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