Dr. Glenn Doman is a physical therapist, who has pioneered the child brain development for more than half century. Dr. Doman has strongly influenced millions of families through his groundbreaking work and literature to brain-injured children, and was distinguished for outstanding heroism in action during World War II and was knighted by the Brazilian government in 1966 for his services to the children of the world.
In 1955, Dr. Doman founded the Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential (IAHP), a non-profit educational organization providing teaching programs and early education kits called the “Gentle Revolution Series”, which aims “to give all parents the knowledge required to make highly intelligent, extremely capable, and delightful children, and, by so doing, to make a highly humane, sane and decent world”.
The Doman Method is designed on the basis of the physiological and neurological development of the child’s brain, focusing on intellectual and physical development of young children from birth to 6 years old. By applying Doman Method, even babies born blind or deaf, can see, hear, read, or write. According to the Journal In-Report, published by IAHP, that of the 300 children who were blind, 251 (83%) saw for the first time and 209 children learned to read. Of the 129 children who were deaf, 113 children (87%) heard for the first time. Since the book “How to Teach Your Baby to Read” by Glenn Doman was published in 1964, thousands of parents have given their healthy babies an exceptional reading ability by using this book.
Doman Method is a flashcard based right brain home teaching programs for reading, mathematics and multilingualism, aiming to stimulate children’s intelligence and to develop their photographic memory and other right brain abilities including speed-reading and computer-like calculating ability at an early age. Other programs include physical and music programs, which also involve a range of activities. Doman Method emphasizes that teaching and learning should be joyous, and repetition and consistency are the keys to success in teaching.
Although Doman Method is supported by many notable people, including double Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling and Anthropologist Raymond Dart, as well as thousands of participating families internationally, same as Karl Witte and Montessori methods, Doman Method has also been criticized by mainstream pedagogical establishment. Dr. Doman believes all children are born with genius potential that is greater than Leonardo da Vinci ever used in his lifetime, the teaching should commence at birth, and the early stimulation through all five senses is the key to unlocking a child’s potential. He declared that children naturally love to learn, and parents are child’s best teacher. These beliefs challenged many mainstream learning paradigms for early education, such as “babies can’t be taught”, “babies are too young to learn and understand”, and “teaching babies early will harm the babies” etc.
However, the rapid development of neuroscience has made it possible to study how brain learns and develops at the cellular and circuit level. The neuroscience experiments confirmed that long-lasting changes in baby’s brain synaptic strengths can be induced by physiologically relevant synaptic activity working through repeated and persistent stimulation. But, it was not until 90s, the importance of early childhood education began to be established officially.