Understanding and Improving the Neurodevelopment of Children: Guide to Child Development - Miracles of Child Development

By Robert J. Doman Jr.

Transcript of 1982 Seminar - Miracles of Child Development, A Guide to Child Development; For anyone wanting to better understand how the brain really works in relation to development, learning, and function, this amazing seminar is essential. It discusses learning, brain development, and overall function in relation to people of all abilities and ages (children or adults).

Robert J. Doman, Jr., Founder of The National Association for Child Development (NACD), and international organization dedicated to helping families, shares a wealth of information regarding how the human brain develops and how it relates to learning and overall function. He explains that learning does not stop with age. The plasticity of the brain allows for individuals with any type of learning challenges to overcome them with the proper activities and learning programs.

With over 35 years of experience working with families and children and over 15 million hours of individual developmental and education intervention, NACD's staff has seen amazing results.

This seminar:
• Gives an excellent overview of NACD's history and purpose
• Increases the listener's knowledge of brain development
• Offers answers about learning difficulties and how to treat the problems
• Provides straightforward solutions regarding teaching children, child management, and how to help children reach their innate potential
• And much more . . .
This seminar is a "must-have" tool for parents that want to increase their base knowledge of child development and function and that want to truly help their children succeed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jan 1, 1982
• ISBN: 9781483553856

Book preview

© 1982 The National Association for Child Development

549 25th Street

Ogden, Utah 84401

eISBN: 978-1-4835538-5-6

Content

Introduction

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the Miracles of Child Development. This [six-hour] seminar is presented to you by the National Association for Child Development. NACD was founded on the belief that whether you have a normal, gifted, or handicapped child, each is capable of learning more and at an accelerated rate. There is no greater responsibility than being a parent and determining the future of a child. If any of us were assigned a new job involving critical and technical skills, we would no doubt receive a great deal of specific training to prepare us for our new important tasks. However, most parents receive little or no training in their most important responsibility--raising children to be well rounded, confident, intelligent and happy adults.

The purpose of this seminar is to give you as parents the knowledge and skills you need to take an active role in helping your child achieve his or her full potential. You will learn how the brain is organized and how it develops. You will learn how to evaluate and develop your child’s learning skills. You’ll learn how to create a positive environment in your home, how to manage your child’s behavior, and also you’ll learn how to evaluate your own learning skills and reach your innate potential. The exciting message of NACD is that it is never too early or too late to improve your abilities and potential.

Your seminar instructor will be Robert J. Doman, Jr., Founder of the National Association for Child Development. Mr. Doman is an internationally recognized educator and lecturer. His work has ranged from rehabilitation for the severely brain injured to the development of accelerated programs for the gifted child. Bob Doman cares about kids. He works long hours to bring the NACD message to concerned parents. Now, with this [audio program], many more families can benefit from the essential principles taught in this seminar.

Now, let’s begin to learn the Miracles of Child Development.

First you’ll notice that your [audio case] contains a course outline. Use this outline to follow along and take notes as you listen. This program contains a great deal of information, much more than you’ll be able to process the first or even the second time through. We encourage all of you to listen to the entire set many times and then go back every month or so and replay the set. The more you know, the more you understand, the better job you’ll be able to do.

Now, your instructor: Mr. Robert Doman, Jr..

Welcome to NACD’s Miracles of Child Development. Tonight we hope to begin an educational experience for you as parents. We hope to enlighten you as to how your child develops, and what role you as a parent play in that developmental process and that child’s educational process. To begin, let me tell you a little bit about whom and what NACD is. The National Academy for Child Development is a parents’ organization, an organization of active, involved and informed parents. Parents who understand that in order for their child to achieve their full potential, they, the parent must assume the responsibility for that child’s development and education. As such, the more we understand as parents, the better job we’ll be able to do with our child and with their development. Now, as a parent, the more you understand, the better you can do, and this seminar is designed to be an introduction for you, to give you a basic understanding as to how the child develops, and give you some insights as to what we can do educationally to help our children come closer to achieving their full potential.

We will begin the seminar specifically by discussing the brain. It is possible for you to attend many seminars, do a lot of reading on development and on education, and never once hear anything mentioned about the brain. But as you will understand, it is the brain that determines how well we function. That is, it is the brain that determines what we do, how we do it. The better our brain functions, the better we can do. If we have a problem with how that brain functions, it affects how the child develops their ability to walk, talk, read, or behave appropriately in society. So that will be our starting point, and specifically we will begin by discussion of a concept which is that of neurological organization, and an understanding of just this one concept is going to significantly change your action and interaction with your child. Let’s begin by specifically just defining neurological organization for you. If you will, follow along in your note outline. The development of the brain is a dynamic and ever-changing process of neurological organization, which can be completely halted or slowed by injury or by environmental deprivation, or greatly increased and heightened by carefully planned environmental stimulation.

Now right there in that first paragraph, we said some significant things. First of all, the development of the brain is a dynamic process, which means it’s a process that begins at conception, and continues throughout our lifetimes. There are many things or many concepts, which we have been taught that have been basically erroneous. One is that we have an end point in our development. That is, there is a point at which development ceases. Of the child who has a severe organic problem, brain injury, the world will say, Johnny can only progress so far. He’ll never be able to walk, he’ll never be able to talk, and at the same time with our normal children, we are given to believe that there is a certain end point in their development, at which development ceases and also, unfortunately, with ourselves, we feel that we have a level of function that we can achieve and which we cannot surpass.

The process of development is dynamic. It begins at conception, continues throughout our lifetimes, and as long as we are putting more into the system, we are going to get more out of it in terms of function. It is an ongoing process. (Audience) Bob, I’m 39 years old. You mean that my development hasn’t stopped. I can continue to grow from here?

For sure. The process is ongoing. Matter of fact, there’s a couple of points that are rather significant to me, as an adult, also, that help me understand that I haven’t reached my end yet. One is that the skull, which we normally think of as that solid container that you see on the late-late show at night, is actually bony area made up of plates, and the plates are separated by sutures, and there’s a large suture right in the middle, and at birth, we call that the soft spot on the baby’s head. As a child’s brain develops, that skull begins to close; those sutures begin to close up, forming a solid case. I tend to look at those sutures as expansion lines. Those final sutures don’t close, if they close at all, until we’re in our seventies and as such, what that tells me is our brain, that system was designed to continue to grow and expand throughout our lifetimes. So the system itself is there. Unfortunately, most of us don’t continue to put enough into that system to permit that growth throughout our lifetimes. As a matter of fact, most of our brains kind of stop that growth when we’re in our late teens or early twenties, but the ceasing of development is not a reflection of what the system is capable of, but a reflection of what we’re putting into it. Let’s continue with our definition of neurological organization. Neurological organization is that degree to which the central nervous system, and more specifically, the brain, provides the organism with all the capabilities necessary to relate it successfully to its environment. We will be talking about how well we function in terms of that neurological organization. The better organized we are, the higher we function, the more we can do, the better neurologically organized we are. If we lack function, that is if we have a child who has a problem walking, talking, reading, that child has a problem in the organization of the central nervous system. So how well we function is directly related to the level of organization of the brain, of the central nervous system.

Pathological influences, either genetic or acquired at any time from conception to death, may disrupt or impair neurological organization, leading to neurological disorganization. Now, if we were to poll a group of parents, particularly a group of parents with children with problems, each parent would call their child a name or two. That is, some parents would say they had a child who was mentally retarded, and other parents say they have a child who has cerebral palsy; another child has a learning disability. Essentially, all those terms, all those labels that are placed on children are what we call symptomatic terms. They are not indicators of the problem, but of the symptom, and as such not reflections of where we need to look and what we need to attack and also, unfortunately, because they are symptomatic labels, they tend to say the child is limited by that label. That is, the mentally retarded child can only do so much; the learning-disabled child can only do so much.

We look at children not in terms of these labels, not in terms of these symptoms, but in terms of the effectiveness, the utility of that central nervous system and as such, we look at children as being neurologically organized, that is efficient, or being neurologically disorganized, or inefficient. The neurologically disorganized child can become a neurologically organized child. (Audience) Are you saying then, Bob, I have a child who’s mentally retarded, or the doctors say he’s mentally retarded. Are you saying that perhaps my mentally retarded child is neurologically disorganized?

If you have a child who has been labeled as mentally retarded, that child for some reason lacks function. That is, the child is not doing all the things his peers of the same chronological age are doing. As such, yes, that child is neurologically disorganized. Because of that lack of function, he has an inefficiency of the central nervous system and as such, if we can address ourselves to that disorganization and eliminate that disorganization, the child potentially can become neurologically organized and thus function at a normal level.

To continue on, the actual physiological development of the brain is a function of the environmental stimulation afforded the system. Variations in stimulation produce differences among individuals, and the development of the sensory pathways, and consequently upon the motor pathways and function. All right, where we function as individuals, where our children function as individuals, is a reflection of what we put in. The more we put in, essentially, the more we are going to get out. Our individual differences are reflections of our individual differences in the stimulation and opportunities that we have received. Now, when we talk about the central nervous system, we are essentially talking about that system that is responsible for operating everything else, and specifically, we talk about the central nervous system being utilized to receive, process, store, and use information. Receive information, process information, store information, and use that information. If we have a child who functions on a high level, it means that child’s brain is neurologically efficient. It means that child is receiving, processing, storing and using information efficiently. If we have a child who lacks some function, the child is not doing everything they should be, then that means the child’s brain is not receiving, processing, storing, and using that information efficiently, thus is disorganized. So our level of function is directly related to that organization and directly related to how well we receive, process, store and utilize information. In general, we say the level of function received by an individual is a reflection of the stimulation and the opportunities afforded the individual by his environment. (Audience) Bob, I’ve always heard that intelligence, or IQ was hereditary. How do you feel about that?

As I say, there are many old wives tales around, and that’s one of the better ones. Where we function is a reflection of two things. Number one, the pathological condition. That is, do we have a healthy brain? If we have a healthy brain, what that brain ultimately does is a reflection of what happens to that brain. We most definitely have children who have injuries to their brain, have pathological problems, and as such, their equipment isn’t all in order. But that is not related to what they inherited. It’s related to an injury to their brain. Where we ultimately function is a reflection of the stimulation and opportunities we receive. It is not a reflection so much of what we were born with. You know, that old concept that IQ was hereditary was rather comfortable for us, as parents, because it put us in a rather passive role. With that concept, essentially what our job became, because our child’s potential was determined at birth, our job essentially was one of merely guiding that child through his development. Seeing that the child ate three meals a day, went to school, did his homework, and didn’t break is neck. That was rather easy for us. All right, but when we start looking at that child’s ultimate potential as a reflection of what we do from that first day of birth, our role of parents’ changes dramatically, because just seeing that he eats those three meals a day and goes to school and does his homework does not make it. (Audience) Well Bob, then just how important is genetics in determining where we function and how well we achieve?

For the vast, vast majority of us, it really is virtually non-significant. I think virtually all of us could have picked almost any child out of that nursery in the hospital and brought him home and what we have done with him since that time would have determined where the child functions. All right, yes, we have children who have genetic deficiencies, and genetic problems, but we are talking about a small percentage of the general population. For most of us, particularly for our children you think of as our normal, average children, it really is not all that significant. I will show you in a few minutes why it is so insignificant.

Let’s look at really where that potential lies, because that will clean that up a lot for you. It is generally assumed the average person only utilizes between five or ten percent of their brain. Five to ten percent of their brain and actually the research in the last couple of years says it is significantly less than that. As a matter of fact, it might be as little as one tenth of one percent that the average person utilizes. Even if we were