At birth, babies brains grow faster, they learn faster and are more eager to learn than at any other time in their lives. With babies we are in a race against the clock. The longer we wait the more difficult it is for the child to learn. If given the opportunity, babies automatically learn things that will be almost impossible after they are three years old. Many people think that the baby's brain automatically develops but that is not the case. Babies in severely deprived environments will be idiots who do not seem human if they even live. Babies that get normal stimulation, that is also not designed to promote their development, become more or less average people. Babies who get stimulation that is optimally designed to give them well rounded development typically become people who are physical, mental, social and psychic geniuses. This is something that most of us can do for our babies if we just learn how.
This field began with Dr. Temple Fay in 1930. Glenn Doman started working with Dr. Fay in 1940. At that time there was virtually no way to help severely brain injured children. People would treat brain injury by working with the effected body part. Fay realized that brain injury is in the brain and to heal the injury one had to work with the brain. Doman and Fay figured out that the way to work with the brain was to adequately stimulate the brain. Using this method they were able to get amazing results with severely brain injured children. Many of these children became able to function as normal people and some at very high or even genius level. This begged the question that if you could get babies who were paralyzed with almost no functionality to function at above normal levels what could you do with normal children. The answer is that you can do an amazing amount. Because of this approach Doman thought of neural development progressing from the spinal cord up through the brain stem, midbrain and the cortex for seven levels. At each level they evaluated and developed visual, auditory, tactile, mobility and language competence. This was spectacularly successful as shown below.
If the concept of quantity is properly presented to babies they can develop automatic subconscious arithmetic processing. This training is started in the first months after birth and before the child learns to count or learns the symbols for numbers. The child is presented cards with from 1 to 100 dots on them. Each card is presented for less than a second. For the mother, on the back of each card is the number of dots. The mother shows the card and says the number using a system. Learning this way the child can look at a tree with say 78 birds in it and know there are 78 birds without counting. The child can be taught arithmetic operations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and roots such that with multi-digit numbers the child will just know the answers without conscious calculation. This is like in the movie Rain Man but without the mental deficiency.
Babies can easily learn to speak much earlier than normal and they can learn to read as easily as they learn to speak. They can readily learn multiple languages if they are exposed to them and they can learn to have perfect pitch. Babies are eager to acquire vast quantities of information. Babies are eager to learn to use their bodies well. We frequently make the mistake of keeping babies on their backs most of the time. A baby on its back is helpless much like a turtle on its back. A baby that spends most of its time on its tummy can use its arms and legs to push off the supporting surface and quickly gain functionality. Babies also have a gripping reflex but no releasing reflex. If we start at birth having them hang from the parents fingers they improve their breathing and they develop amazing upper body strength. It is not unusual for Doman babies to be excellent gymnast and runners by age six and much younger.
Doman did not work explicitly with psychic development but the Japanese were very interested in Doman's work. Shichida is Japanese and he expanded Doman's work to develop psychic abilities that are acceptable in the orient. Also, Japanese have to learn Chinese characters which requires an excellent memory. Shichida thought of the brain as having two modes of functioning he attributed to the right and left sides of the brain. For him the right brain was a picture brain that processed images. That is why material needs to be presented to babies very quickly. The baby's picture processor gets it instantly and does not need to analyze it slowly like most adult brains. For this reason Shichida stressed developing imagery ability. He wanted speed reading where the baby could glance at a page and have it. I have an aunt who could do this. With this photographic memory children could learn vast quantities of material very quickly. In Japan photographic memory was desirable to learn to read Chinese characters. Shichida found that babies are naturally telepathic with humans, animals, ancestors and other beings. Babies are natural healers who can do psychic healing. These are all abilities of the right brain. The left brain has taken over by the time the baby is three years old. If the baby's right brain functions are not developed by then these abilities become very difficult to develop. Some people get them accidentally but why leave it to chance?
Doman's approach is more accessible to us because the institute is near Philadelphia, not Japan. Also, to us what Doman is doing seems more basic. You can learn more about Shichida at Shichidamethod.com. In Systems of Infant Education are exercises like the ones Shichida uses. These can be added to the basic Doman curricula. The institute has three websites, these are IAHP.org, GentleRevolution.com and DomanInternational.org. You can subscribe to a newsletter that comes about once a week. They have courses you can attend live near Philadelphia, they have DVD courses for parents and internet courses. They also have books for parents and books and materials for children. Information on how to teach newborns is readily available.
Some English language books for adults are:
These are also available on Amazon and at most libraries.
Some of these books come as part of packages so you might want to just get the package. You can make your own materials so the package is not necessary. Some of the packages have DVD's to illustrate how to teach that you might want. Also note that some of these packages are redundant because more than one package has arithmetic dots. You can call the Institutes and discuss your options with them.
The following are papers I have written that you might find interesting.