Dyslexia and ADHD - The Miracle Cure. Wynford Dore
achievement in one or two subjects, but very poor in others
Increased likelihood of experiencing bullying
Tendency towards truancy
Then, in emotional life, some, but not all of the following:
Significant tiredness after school or work
Tantrums when faced with complicated instructions, or difficulty doing simple tasks
Low self-esteem which, as you get older, can sometimes include suicidal thoughts
Fear that you are as lazy or thick as you are told you are by others
Sense of isolation
Frustration and anger often caused by an inability to put things in context
Irrational phobias
Tendency to be moody
In sport and physical activities, some, but not all of the following:
Little interest in sport, especially team sports, but some have great skills in skiing, surfing and rollerblading
Very good at some sports and very bad at others
Clumsiness – inability to catch, or to kick balls
Bumping into things
Poor posture
Odd gait or clumsy, uneven way of walking or running
In working life, some, but not all of the following:
Poor sequential memory – inability to sort and remember information
Poor handwriting
Poor concentration
Difficulty in writing long reports
Inability to prioritise tasks
Tendency to be indecisive
Researchers at the Dore Achievement Centres believe that if a person suffers from several of the above symptoms they may be suffering from CDD. For us this is a far more appropriate way of defining learning difficulties than using the labels ‘dyslexia’, ‘ADHD’, ‘dyspraxia’ or ‘Asperger’s Syndrome’. CDD focuses on the root cause of learning difficulties and is not inappropriately associated with being thick or lazy. Other definitions tend to focus on symptoms such as poor reading and writing to define whether a person is dyslexic or dyspraxic. Yet, as we have seen, these symptoms refuse to sit neatly in rigid compartments. In other words, a person with ADHD may have similar symptoms to a person suffering from dyslexia. A person suffering from dyslexia may have co-ordination problems in the same way as a dyspraxic person, and so on.
The overlaps between the traditionally defined conditions are never-ending. Therefore, it may be time for all of us to start thinking about learning difficulties in a completely different way. Instead of trying to understand them from an outside perspective (i.e. if that person cannot read, he must be dyslexic), we should consider them in terms of a neurological condition. We should think about learning difficulties in terms of the root cause and we should focus on the significant potential awaiting discovery.
I imagine my life is similar to many of those who grew up in the Welsh valleys in the forties and fifties. My family were very much working-class and my father did a variety of selling jobs and drove around in a little Austin A30 van, which was his mobile office. My mother was a secretary in a local factory and gave birth to me in a cottage a couple of hundred yards from a great castle called Castell Coch. I was born at the southern end of the Taff valley, north of Cardiff, in a beautiful village called Tongwynlais. I lived in a small cottage without electricity. The toilet was 30 yards down the garden and the Western Mail was behind the pipe for toilet paper. It was a simple life without the modern luxuries that today we take for granted. If I wanted a bath, I would have to go three miles to my grandmother’s house in Nantgarw.
From where we lived, the vista was magnificent. You could see across to Radar and the Dolomite mines. You could also see the huge viaduct that spanned the valley, under which a wartime pilot had once flown a spitfire in a bid to show off to his friends. We eventually moved to another house in Tongwynlais, but the view from our new home was no less beautiful. The top end of the garden looked out towards the coast and I would sometimes sit out there for hours trying to catch a glimpse of the sea.
I was extremely happy and proud to be Welsh. As a child, I was able to walk through the woods and along the disused railway line without any fear of danger. My friends and I would often stuff ourselves on the wild strawberries and berries that grew in plentiful supply in the summer. It was a beautiful and tranquil place, and it was a safe and exciting environment in which to grow up.
Yet, despite my fondness for my country, I only ever managed to retain a few words of my native tongue. I learned these in a school play and I remember them until this day: ‘Beth sydd bod hen wraig? Pam ydych chwi crio?’ Roughly translated, this means ‘What’s the matter, old woman? Why are you crying?’ Of course, in those days Welsh was not taught anything like as much as it is today.
In 1959, my parents moved us to Coventry because there was more work there. I was nine at the time and I remember initially hating city life. In Wales, I had been able to go to the top of my garden to get a magnificent view towards the sea. I was fortunate to gain a scholarship to King Henry VIII School on the outskirts of Coventry at the age of 11 and was lucky enough to receive a fantastic education. However, as I went through school, my ambitions for what I wanted to do became more and more vague. I had a notion that I might like to be a management consultant, but hadn’t the faintest idea what that entailed, or how to become one. Although I did reasonably well in my O-levels, by the time I reached my A-levels I had lost all interest in studying and I knew there was no way I was going to get into university.
The only thing I was sure of was that I had an interest for business. When I was 14, I started my first venture in photography with my cousin, Colin Davis. We took pictures of families, weddings and children. Goodness knows why anybody would want to commission a youth to take professional photographs! It was lucky for me that they did as it paid my pocket money handsomely during my school years, so much so that by the age of 17 I was the proud owner of a blue Ford convertible, albeit a slightly rusty one. I was also developing a great fascination for computers, which in those early days of the 1960s they needed to house in huge air-conditioned rooms. This interest eventually led to my first proper job. After a very disappointing set of A-level results, I went to work for Jaguar Cars in Coventry, where I stayed for five years. It was an exciting time to be involved in computing and, as was the case for everyone in this new profession, I got an enormous amount of responsibility thrown at me for my age.
But it was at the age of 23, when I decided to leave Jaguar, that you might say my entrepreneurial spirit truly kicked in. I think I probably am entrepreneurial, although I am still not sure what the word really means. Some people think it is mainly linked with risk-taking. However, I have always taken it to also mean being hungry and driven to develop some product or service that is better than everyone else’s. As both apply to me, I probably would describe myself as an entrepreneur. When I see something that is desperately needed, that everyone is saying cannot be achieved, I get excited. It can take over my life and drive me; it gets me out of bed in the morning with a spring in my step.
When I left Jaguar, I saw an opportunity and a need in fire protection, and suddenly I could think about nothing else. Every waking hour I devoted myself to it; I even dreamed about it. In 1974, there was new legislation having an impact (the 1971 Fire Precautions Act), which made it compulsory for guesthouses and hotels to make