ADT President

Malcolm, Lord Ritchie -

As Head Master of a small independent school in the '60s and '70s he was one of the first people in Britain to recognize the challenge to educationalists of dyslexia and he set about building up a teaching staff to develop methods to meet this challenge at Brickwall School (now Frewen College).

An inspirational teacher and theatre producer himself, he made the school a foremost leader in the field of dyslexia, contributed to the early development of the BDA, and represented the cause of dyslexia in the House of Lords for several years.

He became President of the ADT in 1992 and his influence has long been a strong motivating force in supporting the Trust's aims.

ADT Chairman

Beverly Steffert PhD. - Cambridge

Beverly is a Chartered Psychologist. She has a clinic in Cambridge specialising in specific learning difficulties and perceptual difficulties. In addition to working with clients she remains actively involved in academic research.

She acts as Consultant Psychologist to the Dyslexia Institute and is a lecturer in brain- behaviour relationships at London University.

She is EEG Spectrum trained in neurofeedback and is an accredited EEG Spectrum Instructor.

She is a member of the British Psychological Society and the International Society for Neuronal Regulation. She sits on the training & certification committee of the Society of Applied Neuroscience.

ADT Secretary and CEO

Sue Parkinson - Ashford

As a designer she has executed commissions in a wide range of disciplines, including: film animation, portraiture, model making, and graphics.

She is probably best known for her ceramic sculpture produced for the Richard Parkinson Pottery which is represented in many collections worldwide and in this country in the V and A and that of the Royal Family.

She completed her education at the Royal College of Art, under Prof. Frank Dobson and John Skeaoing, winning a fourth year scholarship and the RCA Life drawing Prize, the first time this had been won by a Sculpture School student.

Teaching experience: after several years teaching life drawing and sculpture in Colleges of Art, she was invited to develop a strong Art department at Brickwall School where she stayed in charge of Art for almost 20 years. Impressed by the talents displayed by the dyslexic pupils there, she was determined to find the reasons for these talents and took a degree course in Research Methods at the OU. when she retired. Finding confirmation for her belief that there is a connection between dyslexia and above average gifts of visual-spatial ability, she founded ADT with two other members of the Brickwall teaching staff in 1992.

After the success of a trial ADT exhibition at Carmel College in Oxford, she organised the first big public exhibition of dyslexic work at the Mall Galleries in London in 1994. This was opened by Arts Council Chairman Lord Gowrie, and welcomed by Roger de Grey KCVO, President of the Royal Acadamy, who hoped " the educational authorities" would take note of the dyslexic talents on display and "the value of visual thinking". Having been greatly inspired by the ground-breaking book "In the MInd's Eye" she invited the author Thomas West over to England to give talks at the exhibition, since when he has been a frequent visitor to the UK, his talks being enthusiastically received and in great demand in influential circles. He is a principal consultant to the Trust and has been a firm supporter of its aims throughout its subsequent history.

ADT Trustee

Professor Terence Ryan FRCP -

Now in his seventies, he has risen to the very top of his field in the medical profession, in spite of having to overcome great early difficulties at school due to severe dyslexia.

As a dermatologist he is principally known for work on the Blood Supply of the skin, recently receiving the prestigious Nishimaru Award in Japan. He is visiting Professor of Dermatology to a number of universities around the world and an Honorary Member of many Societies.

He has recently retired as a Consultant to the Wound Healing Unit of the Department of Dermatology, Churchill Hospital, Oxford. His past roles in this field include President of the European Tissue Repair Society, founder of the British Lymphology Interest Group, President of the British European and International Liaison Committees of Microcirculation and President of the World Congress of Microcirculation 1984.

He has a bibliography of over 500 publications in dermatology and international public health. He has recently taken a greater interest in the Supervision of Anthropology students and cultural aspects of Integrated Medicine.

He is Honorary President of the International Society of Dermatology, Chairman of the International Foundation for Dermatology.

He is also:-
Medical Advisor to the St Francis Leprosy Guild,
a member of the Medical Board LEPRA
and was a member of the 1997 7th Advisory Panel on the Elimination of Leprosy WHO Geneva;
currently Advisor on Morbidity Control to the Global Alliance for the Elimination of Lymphatic Filariasis;
a Trustee of the Global Initiative for Traditional Systems (GIFTS) of Health;
a Trustee of Oxford International Biomedical Centre;
President of the Oxford Medical Alumni;
and the immediate past President of the Oxford Division of the British Medical Association.

Having recently retired as Consultant Dermatologist and Clinical Lecturer in the NHS in Oxford he is able to devote more time to his work in the organisational and educational field of Primary Health Care in developing countries, and spends much time abroad.

He has been active with the St John's Ambulance for some 25 years, becoming Commissioner and then Commander for for Oxfordshire.

He became a Knight of the Order of St John in 1983.

He is an enthusiastic amateur painter exhibiting and selling many of his landscapes, and he is also a skilled pianist.

ADT Trustee

Clive Summerfield -

Educated at Medway College of Design, where he won many national awards for his innovative designs in metalwork Clive is a highly skilled silversmith and has been working for many years for a well established specialist firm in the trade. Of their recent commissions, the magnificent Dresden Church Bell has been widely exhibited in cathedrals in this country. It can now be seen in its rightful home placed on the top of the church in Dresden.

Like many other talented dyslexics he is not content with one profession only. Together with his interest in exhibition and set design he has developed his skills with a camera to a high professional standard. An exhibition of his photographs may shortly be on view. Many of them reflect extremely unusual aspects of landscapes and other aspects of life in countries such as India, South America and Australia.

Web Site

Tony Steffert MA, BSc(Hons) - London

Tony has a background in design engineering (Central St Martin's, London). He specialises in brain measurement and is an experienced QEEG technician who has worked on a range of research projects including the ADHD and Neurofeedback study at Imperial College, London.

His area of special interest is the link between dyslexia and creativity. Tony is EEG Spectrum trained in neurofeedback (University Hospital, Groningen) and is an independent affiliate of EEG Spectrum International. He is a member of the Society of Applied Neuroscience and International Society for Neuronal Regulation and the Society of Applied Neuroscience.