Brightstar USA
Brightstar in the US appears to run entirely separately to the UK based firm. One notable difference is the statisical evidence the two sites provide.
Both sites have statistics credited to Dr Sam Savage of Standford University. Its not clear what connection Dr Savage has with Brightstar or if the statistical analysis is published in full anywhere. However only the US site mentions the Nottingham University Study and in doing so presents statistics that, whilst not being wrong, they certainly show the program in the best possible light.
Most importantly Brightstar US have details of an ‘ independent audit of BrightStar’s results data’ by PriceWaterhouseCoopers [PDF]. This appears to the type of audit a potential investor may request. It is not a scientific study and lacks many important details, such as the number of children the report covers, and doesn’t compare results to a equivalent placebo treatment. That said the result are impressive with an average increase of about 11 months in ability. The question this raises is does the child continue to improve and catch up with its age group? If they do, then it suggests that Brightstar deals with the fundamentals of dyslexia. However if the child only improves by 11 months and then stays consistently behind non-dyslexics then the results of the program can be put down to the reading tuition the treatment includes.
Find Out More:
Books:
- Overcoming Dyslexia: A New and Complete Science-Based Program for Reading Problems at Any Level
- Engaging Autism: Helping Children Relate, Communicate and Think with the DIR Floortime Approach
- The ABA Program Companion: Organizing Quality Programs for Children With Autism and PDD
- Concerta Side Effects
- Making the System Work for Your Child with ADHD (Making the System Work for Your Child)
April 29th, 2005
Commercial Dyslexia Centres & Treatments
Comments on: Brightstar USA
The audit answers the question, “did the research *happen* — kids did go through the process — not were the findings *significant*. PriceWaterhouseCoopers is an accounting firm, not firm with expertise in evaluating the meaning of the data.
It all is a bit fishy to me.
Posted by: liz Ditz May 3rd, 2005 at 6:03 am
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