I have to admit that a report published yesterday on the BBC News website touched a raw nerve.
The article, published at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/7425743.stm, contained the following warning against "alternative therapies" from the British Dyslexia Association:
Judi Stewart, chief executive of the British Dyslexia Association, urged caution over such alternative therapies, saying there was no cure for dyslexia.
"The BDA recommends specialist teaching, which is multi-sensory stimulated, as these address all of the effects of dyslexia in learning."
Now I am torn by statements such as these. On the one hand, our organisation would agree that there is no "cure" for dyslexia - for the simple reason that we don't see dyslexia as a disease in the first place, but as a thinking style with untapped potential waiting to be harnessed.
Yet there is a key difference between the approach of many "alternative" therapies and the more conventional approaches adopted by the educational establishment.
Generally speaking, conventional approaches are remedial in nature - that is, they see dyslexia, dyspraxia and ADD as disabilities needing coping strategies. They assume that the answer to the problem is to be found in the teacher, and are based around lesson plans, workbooks, repetitive or drill-based activities, learning off by heart, memory tricks and so on. In the best cases, these approaches are based around multi-sensory teaching of the kind that Judi Stewart describes.
Alternative approaches, however, are explorative in nature. They see each dyslexic, dyspraxic or ADD thinker as a unique individual with as unlimited a learning potential as any other member of the human race. They understand that the answer to the problem always lies in the learner. And whatever their theory as to why dyslexia happens, their focus is to team up with the learner to find out why their natural intelligence hasn't - yet - engaged with the learning area in hand.
Alternative approaches are not satisfied with coping strategies. They look for approaches to learning that come easily and effortlessly to the learner because they engage with their natural thinking style and intelligence.
Instead of a lesson plan, they approach the learner with intense curiosity as to how they think and an open attitude to where the exploration is going to go. They have "long antennae" - keen observational skills ready to pick up the very first signs of confusion in a learner as a "clue" to be explored. They have excellent inter-personal skills and will build up a bond of trust with a learner who will then willingly talk about how they experience learning.
This explorative principle is part of why alternative approaches often see a sudden surge of ability in their clients. We have had clients who have progressed from a reading age two years below to two years above their biological age in a space of months. And while not every client experiences change as dramatic as this, there tends to come a "magic moment" in an explorative programme where the answers start to pour forth as to why a particular learning area has been challenging for a person in the past, and how this can now change.
As far as I can tell, few in the media have taken the trouble to speak to actual Dore Programme clients, turning instead to spokespeople from other organisations for comment.
One of the things that has struck us in many of the Dore Programme clients who have been approaching us in the current turmoil has been their staunch loyalty to the programme and its effects. We experience a similar loyalty in our own clients. A number of our Programme Facilitators, in fact, are parents of former Programme clients who decided they wanted to deliver the same benefits to others.
It is easy to use current developments to denounce the Dore Programme and other non-traditional approaches. Yet the media would do well to heed this loyalty factor, and become curious about why it is there.
Richard Whitehead
Note: A number of our clients are willing to speak publicly about the benefits they have experienced. If you are putting together an article or report on non-traditional approaches to dyslexia and are looking for people to interview about their benefits, contact us at info@thelearningpeople.co.uk
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