How elephants could help children with dyslexia

The Daily Express 

March 22, 2001 

Neurologist Harold Levinson claims he can diagnose dyslexia by showing elephants moving across a computer screen. If he is right, he could help 375,000 dyslexic children. JOHN TRIGGS investigates 

David Gooden is one of the brightest 11-year-olds you could hope to meet. He is lively, articulate and intelligent. In fact, he's recently been given a special academic distinction by his school. 

But last year David's life was very different. He was behind with his work and often in trouble. He also felt clumsy and suffered from headaches. His parents took him to see Dr Harold Levinson, a psychiatrist and neurologist from New York. He has recently invented a machine which he claims can diagnose dyslexia. 

At first glance, it seems simple enough. It is essentially a computer, with a monitor on which a line of black elephants is displayed. When the programme is started, the elephants move slowly across the white background. Gradually their speed increases until eventually they can only be seen as a blur. 

Dr Levinson believes those with dyslexia will see the elephants turn into a blur far earlier than a person without the condition. 

In the second test, black bars are super-imposed on the elephants. The bars move forwards while the elephants stay still. But someone with dyslexia thinks the elephants are moving backwards and the bars are stationary. 

How does it work? Dr Levinson explains that the machine is testing children for signs of an inner-ear disorder. He refutes the conventional theory that dyslexia is a fault in the thinking part of the brain which controls reading. He believes dyslexia is just one symptom of a dysfunction of the inner-ear system, which controls balance and co-ordination. "It's very simple," he says. "If I spun you around for 10 minutes you would have all the symptoms of people who suffer from these disorders. You would feel dizzy, your timing would be messed up and you'd find reading very difficult. 

"Other studies have looked at people with dyslexia and found that these symptoms are all present in varying degrees. But in the past, researchers have dismissed these as side effects. I believe that in fact they are crucial to our understanding of dyslexia." 

Although most of Dr Levinson's work has been in America, he has 600 patients in the UK. Once he has diagnosed the disorder, he prescribes a mixture of motion sickness drugs and herbal remedies to help balance. 

David has been taking them for nine months, and so far it seems to have worked. "Before, when I tried to read I found that the words were always blurred and difficult to pin down," says David, who lives in Halifax with his parents, Julia and Peter. "It was as if they were fireworks exploding on the page and I was always too afraid to speak out in class for fear of getting something wrong. 

"But when I started taking the medication everything changed. It was like somebody had opened these curtains over my eyes. All of a sudden reading and spelling wasn't so hard." 

Julia, 41, also noticed the change. "He used to find school tough and whenever David asked for help he was shouted at. Now I feel he has a future. His teacher rang recently to tell me that they had noticed a dramatic improvement in his work." 

But despite success stories like David's, Dr Levinson's work remains controversial. 

Both the British Dyslexia Association and the Dyslexia Institute caution parents against trusting a course of treatment they say is not yet backed up by proper scientific research. "Not all interventions are equally effective and many are not properly tested," says Shirley Cramer, executive director of the Dyslexia Institute. "Dr Harold Levinson's work has been controversial in the USA for many years." 

Lindsay Peer, education director of the British Dyslexia Association, agrees. "It is important that parents and professionals look to proven practices to support dyslexic children," she says. 

But many parents don't feel they need to wait for official recognition. Duncan and Elaine Gill from Basildon, Essex, recently used Dr Levinson's machine to diagnose their 15-year-old daughter Rachel. She then started taking anti-sickness pills and has already noticed a dramatic change. 

"Before, everything always seemed a struggle," she says. "I'd get headaches and find it hard to read. My co-ordination was so poor I was useless at sports. 

"When I started on the medication I never dreamed it would work so effectively. Suddenly the dizziness I had been feeling was gone. I could think clearer and my writing and reading have really improved." 

Her father Duncan adds: "All through Rachel's life we could tell she was a bright girl but we could sense that she was having trouble letting her brightness shine through. 

"Now she is completely different. She enjoys school now. The most rewarding thing for me is to see her change in personality; she's so much happier. My only regret is that we didn't discover this problem earlier." 

For more information on Dr Levinson's work you can visit his website at www.dyslexia-add.co.uk or call the Levinson Medical Center for Learning Disabilities in America (001 516 482 2888).