Dyslexia Treatment Centre - Free Online testing

Click on the Image to go to the website.

A person with dyslexia can be helped with a tailor-made treatment programme once strengths and weaknesses of their learning ability has been identified with one of our specialist educational assessments.

The length of a dyslexia treatment depends on the level of severity of the student’s dyslexia. However, we have found it can take anywhere between 6 and 12 months, with fortnightly visits to the Dyslexia Treatment Centre.

Currently based in Glasgow and London.

Free Online Test and Parents and Teachers' E-Book

UK children's speech therapy cuts - Warning!

In an exclusive interview with The Independent , Ms Gross said parents needed more information about children’s speech development arguing that many families were still unaware how to help their youngsters.

She called for parents to be offered information via smart phones and social networking sites, saying parents were willing to make dramatic changes to their lifestyles once the dangers of their children’s excessive television viewing or dummy use were explained to them.

In her final report, Two Years On, Ms Gross warns that the improvements made in children’s speech during 2011, the national year of communication, risk being overturned because of the “significant cuts” to front-line services.

The cuts come as levels of communication problems identified in children continue to rise, with a 58 per cent growth in numbers of pupils with communication as their primary special need over the last five years.

Ms Gross told The Independent her visits to 105 out of 152 local authorities during her two years in the job had made her “very worried” about the effect of the cuts on children with communication problems.

Ms Gross said she feared that children would face significantly longer waits to see speech and language therapists for assessment. She said: “If you are three and have to wait around 18 months to be seen then it is going to be much harder to catch up. If children can have help and catch up by the time they are five and a half then there progress should be normal from then on. But research shows that a child whose problem persists after five and a half will struggle.”

Ms Gross was appointed the Government’s communication champion in January 2010 in order to boost awareness of the importance of developing children’s communication skills.

Dyslexia: Reading aloud in class broke my confidence

Chef Marco Pierre White today told of his battle learning to read - and revealed that he still relies on "giant picture books".

The restaurateur said he used cooking as a way to cope with his difficulties reading and writing.

Pierre White, the youngest chef to attain three Michelin stars, said that at school he found reading aloud in class "very belittling, very humiliating".

"The teachers knew that I struggled and I could hear the other children laughing so it broke my confidence down. When I left school I was 16 years old. Did I struggle with how to read? Yes I did. Did I struggle with how to spell? Yes I did," he said.

He was speaking in support of the London Evening Standard's Get London Reading campaign. To date, it has raised more than £150,000 to fund 310 new volunteer readers with our partner charity Volunteer Reading Help. They provide £500 per volunteer, which is matched by schools, with the readers then working one-to-one with three children each at struggling primary schools.

Pierre White, 49, said: "I think what the London Evening Standard is doing is creating awareness and by creating awareness it dissolves the embarrassment so young men and young women are not embarrassed."

He added: "I was very fortunate that I entered a world where I didn't have to read or write. I entered a world of cooking where I expressed with my fingers and so that built my confidence. Over the years I've taught myself how to read. I've taught myself how to spell.

"I still struggle but I have to read very slowly and because I read slowly and because I struggle to absorb, I tend not to read, even though I have thousands of books at home, they're all giant picture books."

Pierre White said he realised he was dyslexic when his son was diagnosed after his school alerted the family. "They went into great detail about dyslexia and that's when I was able to label myself as being dyslexic. They could have been talking about the same boy, but many years previous when I was a boy they never spoke of dyslexia."

He added: "It's not a stigma to be labelled with dyslexia. Individuals with dyslexia have great talents and great qualities."

Meta-cognitive Therapy (MCT) for Adult ADHD

Meta-cognitive Therapy (MCT) for Adult ADHD | Psych Central News

A new study suggests meta-cognitive therapy (MCT), a method of skills teaching that uses cognitive-behavioral principles, improves outcomes among adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Mary Solanto, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Director of the Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Center at The Mount Sinai Medical Center examined the effectiveness of a 12-week meta-cognitive therapy group.

The intervention was intended to enhance time management, organisational, and planning skills and abilities in adults with ADHD.

“We observed adults with ADHD who were assigned randomly to receive either meta-cognitive therapy or a support group,” said Dr. Solanto.

“This is the first time we have demonstrated efficacy of a non-medication treatment for adult ADHD in a study that compared the active treatment against a control group that was equivalent in therapist time, attention, and support.”

The study observed 88 adults with rigorously diagnosed ADHD, who were selected following structured diagnostic interviews and standardized questionnaires.