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ISBN: 0-7570-0186-6
(paperback)
ISBN: 0-7570-0187-4 (hardback)
Length: 288 Pages
Size: 6 X
9-inch
Format: Paperback / Hardback
Category: Child Development
Price: $18.95
(paperback)
24.95 (hardback)
Availability:
In Print
Click below for:
Synopsis • Contents
Introduction • Reviews |
Synopsis
In this updated classic, Glenn Doman--founder
of The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential and pioneer
in the treatment of the brain-injured children--brings real hope
to thousands of children who have been sentenced to a life of institutional
confinement. Based upon a half-century of successful work performed
at The Institutes, this book explains why old theories and techniques
fail, and why the philosophy and revolutionary treatment of The
Institutes succeed.
In What To Do About Your Brain-Injured Child,
Doman recounts the story of The Institutes’ worldwide research--setbacks
as well as history-making breakthroughs--during its tireless effort
to refine treatment of the brain injured. He shares the staff’s
lifesaving techniques and the tools used to measure (and ultimately
improve) visual, auditory, tactile, mobile, and manual development.
Doman explains the unique methods of treatment that are constantly
being improved and expanded, and then describes the program with
which parents are able to treat their own children at home in a
familiar and loving environment. Included throughout are case histories,
drawings, and helpful charts and diagrams.
Twenty thousand families from over one hundred
nations have brought their children to The Institutes. The great
majority of these children have done better than their parents had
hoped based on prior experience with conventional methods. For each
of these families, this book was the starting point.
Glenn
Doman , received his degree in physical therapy from the
University of Pennsylvania in 1940. From that point on, he began
pioneering the field of child brain development. In 1955, he founded
The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. By the early 1960s, The Institutes’ world-renowned
work with brain-injured children had led to vital discoveries regarding
the growth and development of well children. The author has lived
with, studied, and worked with children in more than one hundred
nations, ranging from the most civilized to the most primitive.
Doman is also the international best-selling author of six books,
all part of the Gentle Revolution Series, including How
To Teach Your Baby Math, How To Teach Your Baby To Read, How To
Give Your Baby Encyclopedic Knowledge, and How To Multiply
Your Baby’s Intelligence.
Contents
Foreword
Preface
1. Brain-Injured Children
Today
DECADE OF DESPAIR--1940
to 1950
2. Temple Fay
3. I Am Plunged Deep Into the Heart of Brain Injury--and Despair
4. A Research Team Begins to Shape Up, 1947 to 1950
5. A Catch-as-catch-can Organization
DECADE OF DISCOVERY--1950
to 1960
6. A Journey Through Failure
7. We Seek Help and So We Grow
8. The Search for Normality
9. The Floor 10. The Roadblock--Injury
11. Patterning
12. The Question of Reception and Expression
13. The Institutes Are Born
14. Sensation and Its Importance to Movement
15. Breathing
16. We Put It to the Test
17. Speech
18. Reading
DECADE OF EXPANSION--1960
to 1970
19. Finding the Break in the Circuit
20. Closing the Break in the Circuit
21. So What’s Going on in the Body? Function Determine Structure
22. So What’s Going on in the Brain? Function Determine Structure
23. The Death of Temple Fay
24. Parents Are Not the Problem: Parents Are the Answer
25. On Motivation
26. Who is Brain-Injured? Who is Not?
27. How Many Brain-Injured Children Are There?
28. What Causes Brain Injury?
29. The Past, Present, and Future of the Brain-Injured Child
THE FUTURE--1970
to The Present
30. The End of the Beginning
31. Where Do We Go from Here?
32. The Family is the Answer
33. Results--The Only Thing That MattersDo You Need Help?
Appendices
Detoxification from Anticonvulsants
Children with Severe Brain Injuries
The Inclined Floor Instructions
Credits
Bibliography
Index
Introduction
BRAIN-INJURED CHILDREN TODAY
Periodically one hundred people will arrive at The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential in Philadelphia for one week.
They will have nothing in common except that all are the parents of brain-injured children.
They will be mothers and fathers who have in common the refusal to believe that their hurt child cannot be helped.
If it is a typical group, the families will come from the four corners of the Americas and from Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, or the Middle East.
In short, from everywhere on earth. The children will range in age from one year to nineteen years.
There may be one young person or adult in the group.
Some will be so paralyzed that they are barely able to breathe.
Some will be so mildly injured that they appear to the eye to be totally well.
Some of the kids will be paralyzed from head to toe. Some will be blind as a bat. Some will be deaf as a post. Some will suffer from recurring violent convulsions. Some will be unable to talk or even make sounds. Some will have all of these problems.
They will come with recorded IQs of 90, 80, 70, 60, 50, 40, 30, 20, 10, or 0. Most of them will be said to have unmeasurable IQs.
They will arrive having been diagnosed as brain-damaged, mentally retarded, mentally deficient, cerebral-palsied, Down syndrome, spastic, emotionally disturbed, flaccid, epileptic, quadriplegic, autistic, psychotic, hemiplegic, rigid, etc.
Almost every one of them, on the basis of lengthy and sophisticated examination, we will diagnose as brain-injured, meaning that the problems are not problems of weak arms or legs, or poor musculature, or malformed organs of speech, or defective eyes as much of the world has believed. Instead, we will conclude that his problems originated within the brain out of some accident which occurred before, during, or after birth and that either interfered with the brain’s ability to take in information or with the brain’s ability to respond to it.
Of course, if the problem originates in a condition that could be solved by surgery--such as hydrocephaly--we prescribe surgery. However, operable cases will ordinarily have been diagnosed and taken care of before the child reaches us.
In a typical group, about fifteen percent will return home and do no program but will see their children in an entirely different and better way and, as a result, give their children new opportunities to grow.
Fifty percent of a typical group will return home, diagnose their child, design a program for him, and carry it out with varying degrees of frequency, intensity, and duration with commensurate results.
The remaining thirty-five percent, the most determined group, will apply for and be accepted into the aspirant program, with the goal of being accepted into the Intensive Treatment Program.
It is for these parents that this week is designed so that we can teach as fully as possible the principles of brain growth and development and how to design a program to increase brain growth and development.
After this week these families will design such a program and carry it out with the intention of joining the Intensive Treatment Program in the future.
By addressing ourselves this week to the needs of these families we best serve all the families who have come to learn.
We act as if every family here is going to be a part of the Intensive Treatment Program because all of them will have everything to gain and nothing to lose if we do so.
Some of the children will be on the Intensive Treatment Program for a year. Some children will be on the program for five years. Some others will be on the program for longer. Some of the parents will run out of energy and give up. Most will not give up. Some will never give up, even if they lose.
The great majority of children will do better than their parents had dared hope on the basis of prior experience with the conventional methods. With others there will be disappointment.
Sometimes a severely hurt child will make greater gains more quickly than another child whose problems seemed much less serious.
Some of the children who were completely blind will end up reading--not with their fingers but with their eyes, like everybody else. Some will remain blind.
Some of the children who were completely paralyzed will end up walking, running, and jumping--not with braces or crutches but with their legs like everybody else. Some will fail to walk.
Some of the children who were unable to make sounds will end up talking--not with their fingers by pointing and pantomime but with their lips and mouths, like everybody else.
Some who writhed endlessly or could not remain still will find an end to their writhings.
Some of the children who were paralyzed and speechless and blind and deaf will end up totally well and in the same school and grade as their normal peers. In short, they will be normal.
Others will end up walking, talking, and dancing and perhaps with IQs in the genius area.
The results, therefore, will range from total success to total failure.
It is not surprising that children sometimes fail in a world where most professionals were taught in school that hurt brains are beyond mending. Instead, it is surprising that anyone gets well. To many it would seem miraculous.
And who is it who has accomplished such miracles, if miracles they be, in this new century? It is the parents who have done so, and at home. Parents--those commonly ignored, sometimes despised, frequently patronized, almost never believed people--will have done at home all of the treatment which brought a child from despair to hope, from paralysis to walking, from blindness to reading, from an IQ of 70 to an IQ of 140, from dumbness to speech. Parents.
In some cases, a medical doctor will be closely involved in the home treatment. Hundreds of physicians have come and watched the work at The Institutes--and then enrolled their own brain-injured child. However, more than 20,000 parents, quite without medical training, have brought us their hurt child and then gone home to carry out the prescribed treatments.
How is it possible for parents to accomplish this with their children?
Perhaps to understand such a process, it is best to begin at the beginning, which was more than a half century ago.
That’s where we begin in teaching parents about brain-injured children. If one really wants to understand about brain-injured children, perhaps there is no place else to begin.
Reviews
to come
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