New Dore "Research", Well Fisked by BrainDuck

Update June 1 2008: Dore seems to be out of business, world-wide.  See this summary post.  My sympathies to those families who prepaid and have no economic recourse. Hallowell's New York facility is continuing to offer the Dore treatment.

In October, I went to the National Association of Educational Therapists'  National Convention, where Ned Hallowell was the keynote speaker.  During his presentation, Hallowell was asked about his endorsement of the  Dore method, and he responded with anecdotes.  Someone timidly asked about research on the Dore method's efficacy, and Hallowell responded that it would cost $4 million to do a study.  I was disappointed in his answer, but I was too chicken to bring up the February 2007 editorial in Nature Neuroscience, which took the following position:

However, before any treatment becomes broadly accepted, it should be rigorously evaluated by researchers with no link to the company that stands to profit from a positive trial.

I didn't see the article from the British pediatric journal until after the conference.  Maybe I'd've been bolder. Bishop writes:

Unfortunately, the published studies are seriously flawed. On measures where control data are available, there is no credible evidence of significant gains in literacy associated with this intervention. There are no published studies on efficacy with the clinical groups for whom the programme is advocated. It is important that family practitioners and paediatricians are aware that the claims made for this expensive treatment are misleading.

Thanks to Holford Watch, I've learned that there is a new paper from Dore that is being flogged as "research". 

Findings from a major UK study support the effectiveness of Dore exercise-based therapies in helping people overcome learning, attention and behavioral difficulties.

Holford Watch looked at the data, and came to the opposite conclusion:

Table 1 in the paper (p. 7) actually shows that Dore did not bring a statistically significant improvement in Dyslexia Screening Test (DST) scores for clients presenting with a mild/borderline risk of dyslexia.

The good bloggers at HW referred to a new blog, Brainduck, that addressed the weaknesses in the paper point-by-point: Why Are Dore So Bad At Research?

Brainduck goes through the paper at length, and summarizes (emphasis added)

Quick summary for those of you with better things to do than read a point-by-point ramble through a 30-page paper. This research was not designed in such as way as to be able to show that DORE works. There is no control group, no attempt to look at whether their measures correlate with real-world success in school etc, no follow-up, and only three in five of their participants were actually diagnosed with Dyslexia. Even if you take the research on its own terms, it shows that for most people then DORE doesn't work - only the bottom few % showed any improvement, and this was mostly to do with stuff like bead-threading, not measures of reading and writing. Without a control group it is not possible to tell whether this would have happened anyway, for example as the children got older or if they were being given extra help in school too. It is not surprising if children get better at things over time, especially if they have parents who are willing to put a lot of effort & money into helping them learn.

Brainduck notes that the paper ends with this rather pathetic whinge:

The sad part is that rather than embrace this intervention the reading industry led by the phonological theorists have chosen to severely criticise and ridicule it through manipulation of information and hiding behind authoritative academic positioning.'

Hmmmn.  "Reading industry"?  What is that?

But, if you are interested in quack treatments, you should go read the whole thing.

Previous Holford Watch coverage of  Dore

• Not just ineffective, lousy managers too
• Dore pwned in medical journal: no media coverage
• More no media coverage of "Dore doesn't work"

Editorial in Nature Neuroscience 10, 135 (2007)
doi:10.1038/nn0207-135

A cure for dyslexia?

Dorothy VM Bishop (2007)
Curing dyslexia and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder by training motor co-ordination: Miracle or myth?
Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health 43 (10), 653–655.
doi:10.1111/j.1440-1754.2007.01225.x

Previous Posts Here

• DDAT (Dore) Treatment: Bunk or Not? (December 2003)
• International Dyslexia Association's Stand on Dore Treatment (July 2004)
• Good Morning, America Falls for Dore Claim of "Dyslexia Cure" (July 2004)
• Wynford Dore Answers Questions (February 2006)
• The Dores of Perception (August 2006)
• The Dore Hard Sell (November 2006)
• Dore Treatment: Aggressive Marketing (December 2006)
• Dore and the Independence of the British Dyslexia Association's Editorial Board (January 2007)
• An Interview with Wynford Dore (November 2007)

Others critical of the lack of research base (link takes you to particular posts):

Bad Science
Second Sight
Second Sight: Logan

Chris Treganza on Dore's Marketing in England

• Aggressive Marketing Harming Cerebellum Based Treatments?
• Dore Marketing Part I--What Is Wrong
• Dore Marketing Part II--what they could do.
• Dore's deceptive advertisting.
  

• Complaints about Dore's deceptive TV ads upheld
• Wynford Dore: 10 Questions
• The Problem with Adverts, Commercial Interests, and LDs.

 

Comments

[Duck]

Thanks very much for your kind comments - I've been rather overwhelmed by the response to my post, it's the first time I've tried blogging, & just 'cos I got told that an email I'd scribbled in a few minutes needed a bigger audience. Usually the only people who read my work are underpaid postgrads, & now I've got nearly 800 hits for the sort of stuff I do all the time on my course!

Not too sure exactly what to do with the blog, but feel somewhat duty bound to continue with so many hits. Suggestions welcome.

I'm hoping to put more on SpLDs up in the next couple of weeks. I'm covering working memory at the moment, so hopefully will be able to give some explanations of what it means for SpLDs. Also hope to cover a few more examples of research into SpLD & ASD, both good & bad.

'The sad part is that rather than embrace this intervention the reading industry led by the phonological theorists have chosen to severely criticise and ridicule it through manipulation of information and hiding behind authoritative academic positioning.'

I went to an interesting lunchtime departmental talk a few weeks ago which may help to put this in context.
I suspect this refers to an occasion when a prominent 'phonological theorist', Prof Maggie Snowling, talked to the BBC about DORE, thinking she was just helping them out with a bit of background context. The BBC broadcast her remarks, whereupon she had lawyers from DORE turning up at her home address with angry letters telling her to stop, & to make a statement about how wonderful DORE are. The university lawyers replied with a letter saying 'Prof Snowling is a Very Clever Professor, & as such has a moral, social, & professional duty to talk about dyslexia in public, so bog off & leave her alone'.
The legal bods then advised that in order to avoid being sued she should preface controversial statements with stuff like 'In my opinion as a Professor...'.
If there is a reading industry then I can't see much evidence that many people at York are making their fortunes from it. Come & look round the departmental car park - those who don't ride bicycles aren't exactly driving BMWs. The treatment is mostly free via state schools or the NHS, with worksheets of exercises for the cost of photocopying them.

DORE do a nice job of attempting to manipulate information & pretending to be academically respectable themselves. I just don't understand how anyone could possibly design such a bad study & think it could prove anything beyond 'Children improve skills over time'. Control groups & 'Fair Tests' are GCSE-level [age 16] science, & I'm ashamed that a Professor of Psychology at a good British University seems to have missed that altogether. I'd not expect to get away with designing my undergrad project like that.

[Liz D.]

Latest mendacious press release from Dore

Dore

U.S. researchers discover that the brains of children and teenagers with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are three years delayed compared with typically developing children.

"What I wouldn't take away from this study is: 'Just sit and wait three years and your kid will be OK. We know ADHD is a real problem for children, their families and schools, and it does need treatment,'" says Dr. Philip Shaw of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), lead author of the study.

Half of the U.S. children who meet diagnostic criteria for ADHD receive treatment. First line treatment often includes medication such as Ritalin, a stimulant intended to lower impulsiveness, hyperactivity and improve attention. Many parents avoid medicating their children due to concerns about adverse side effects. Those parents who choose medication often do so for a lack of better alternatives. Now, children and adults with ADHD, Dyslexia and Asperger's in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Los Angles and Phoenix have a medication-free alternative treatment.

Wynford Dore, successful British businessman and founder of the Dore Program, a clinically proven alternative treatment for ADHD, dyslexia, and Asperger's says, "At Dore, we develop the cerebellum, the root cause of the problem, rather than masking symptoms." The Dore Program uses individually tailored eye, balance, and sensory exercises performed at home 5-10 minutes twice daily with one center visit every six weeks. Today, the Dore Program helps more than 50,000 people worldwide.

Dr. Edward Hallowell, world renowned ADHD expert and author of Driven to Distraction states, "Wynford Dore and his research team have developed a ground-breaking new treatment for ADHD, dyslexia, and other conditions that derive entirely or in part from cerebellar dysfunction. I have followed the development of this work for three years now, and my own son and wife have benefited tremendously by going on the program. I am now convinced that this is the most exciting new treatment to appear since the advent of stimulant medication in 1937."

[Gina Pera]

ACK!

Pretty prescient call on this one, given the massive bilking in Australia (not to mention all the small bilkings for offering a bogus therapy to desperate parents). Mendacious indeed.

Kudos!

Gina Pera