TREATMENT for dyslexia that uses simple physical exercises to stimulate the brain has produced remarkable improvements in literacy and self-confidence among primary school pupils.

The results of a study of the treatment, which involved 40 children with dyslexia and other related learning difficulties, show that some participants’ reading age improved by nearly two years in the space of nine months.

By the end of the two-year study, which was conducted at Balsall Common Primary School, in Solihull, West Midlands, the pupils who underwent the treatment were making faster educational progress than their peers who had no learning problems.

Dyslexia charities greeted the results with caution and warned parents against expecting the commercially developed treatment, known as DDAT (dyslexia, dyspraxia and attention disorder treatment), to provide “a miracle cure”. They pointed out that the treatment, developed by a private company based in Warwickshire and costing £1,500 for a full course lasting one year, has not been shown to work for all people with dyslexia or related conditions.

The research at Balsall Common Primary started after one pupil with serious dyslexia completed a DDAT course at the Dore Achievement Centre in Warwickshire. The boy, Simon, had to undertake to do ten minutes of physical exercises twice a day to stimulate the cerebellum, the area at the back of the brain that deals with basic motor skills, including balance.

There are 130 different DDAT exercises which cover a range of motor functions, including balancing on a wobbly board, moving back and forth on an exercise ball, standing on one leg and throwing and catching a bean bag.

Trevor Davies, the school’s headmaster, said that he soon noticed a change in Simon’s educational progress. “His class teacher and I both started to notice dramatic improvements,” he said. “Within six weeks his self-esteem had risen and he began to express himself more, both in spoken and written words.”

Following this success the school agreed in 2001 to take part in the study co-ordinated by the University of Exeter. Half of the 40 pupils took part in a DDAT programme with the others acting as a control. None of the teaching staff was aware, from the outset, which children were receiving treatment.

The exercise group soon began to show significant improvements in reading, comprehension and writing. After six months the control group was introduced into the exercise programme and similar results were observed. Researchers also noticed that the children’s sporting ability and self-confidence improved.

Kevin Eyres, chief executive of Dore, said that stimulating the cerebellum by giving it lots of balancing and hand-eye co-ordination tasks improves its function generally. As a result the child gets better not only at balancing but also at reading and writing.

David Reynolds, Professor of Education at Essex University, who assessed the study, said: “The children in the study actually made 25 to 40 per cent more progress than their age peers, which is remarkable. We also looked at them a year after the treatment and found that there was no ‘wash out’, that is, no evidence that the effects of the treatment were wearing off.”

However, Shirley Cramer, chief executive of the Dyslexia Institute, said that while some children did appear to benefit from DDAT, it did not work for all. “There are enough families out there for whom it has not worked for us to be sceptical about it,” she said.

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