I probably should just go ahead
and create a single file on this, since I think I end up posting it about yearly or so. Glenn Doman, a physical therapist, got the idea after working with WWIIveterans, that children with brain injuries should be able to recover from these injuries as well, by going through a forced 'patterning' of body movements. He tried this on a few children, and it seemed to work, which led to the Institute for the Advancement of Human Potential. The theories were refined through the work of Carl Delacato, who believed that this could have application to children with Downs, Autism, and similar conditions. This was later applied to students with learning disabilities, students who were 'slow learners', and, eventually, to just plain normal kids who the parents wanted to make smarter. Later on, in response to his book 'How to Help Your Brain Injured Child', Doman wrote several other books, which still exist in pretty much their original form, including 'How to teach your baby to read', 'How to teach your baby math' and 'Give your child universal intelligence'. Summaries of these books were printed in Women's magazines, and many of the reviews seem to almost have the attitude that 'if you don't do this, you're a bad parent'.All of Doman's methods have the same basic features in common. They all are very rigid and segmented, and take a huge amount of parent/adult time. The physical
patterning requires five people to move the child's body for him for some of the activities. The child has no choice, no volition, and nocontrol. Since at the time this was started, students with disabilities weren't welcome in many public school classrooms, the goal was to 'normalize' the child and hide the disability.
It was a high stress activity both for the parents and the child, and the term 'plateau panic' was coined to describe the situation where the child stops improving. The parents were cautioned not to stop the program if the child fought it, because, like eating vegetables, it was to help the child. Two accounts written of Doman families are 'A boy called hopeless' and 'No time for Jello' Both have positive outcomes, but show the stress this placed on the family. In the 60's and 70's, thousands of children went through the IAHP, first those who had definite disabilities, and later, those who had parents who just were willing to spend a lot of money and time to make their child 'better.' Doman only took those who he considered able to be helped, with the result that the deck was stacked to children who had developmental disabilities which would improve with time, or
just plain intelligent children who already were above average and would be a success for the program. By the mid/late 80's, there were starting to be long-term studies of the 'Doman Babies'. These children were now in their teens and college years,and certain commonalities had begun to emerge.
1. Most of these children had a very low tolerance for personal failure, and were generally unable to accept that any situation did not have its roots in them personally-a very high internal locus of control. While some of this is desirable, these children, as teens and adults tend to be very prone to severe depression and suicide attempts, because when they run into things they can't control, they simply can't deal with
the situation. A bad work situation or a just plain unfair situation is next to impossible for one of these individuals to handle emotionally, because they automatically accept blame. Girls, especially, who went through the Doman programs, have a high frequency of ending up in abusive relationships and not getting out of them, because this self-blame and internal locus of control feeds the tendencies of an abusive personality. This has been attributed to both the lack of control in the early years and the high level of parental stress. Other studies have shown similar effects in children who have experienced extreme situations, such as severe abuse by a parent, living in a war zone, etc.
2. Many of these students were later diagnosed with some rather unusual learning disabilities, especially those related to spacial perception and perceptual motor skills, and usually only found in children who were unable to develop movements naturally. This is believed to be because, while the patterning attempted to
create a normal development cycle, it effectively meant that the child didn't develop at the time the child needed to develop. While the child was being taught to crawl, he/she missed out on what he would have been doing at the time. While the child was being given eye exercises to speed reading, he/she wasn't developing the visual skills naturally.
3. Many of these individuals have significant difficulties socially, and, aschildren, were unable to interact with other children. In adulthood, these individuals have difficulty making social relationships, and often seem rather 'cold' or 'aloof'. This is probably a combination of a lack of social interaction with children and also a body language issue, because the body movements taught tend to come off as hostile.
4.Some of the Doman covering techniques, designed to make a disability lessobvious, actually cause physical damage in the long term. Other children, especially children with Downs, were subjected to facial plastic
surgery, which, because of their young age at the time, has sometimes caused problems and required further surgeries later. In addition, the child was sometimes forced to lie and hear their parents lying about their abilities and disabilities for years at a time, which wasn't exactly good psychologically for the child. I, unfortunately, know too well these traits. I was a Doman baby (born with cerebral palsy). While the Doman methods may have increased my physical abilities, and made me 'acceptable' to enter school, I have also paid the price. I was fortunate in that one of my college psychology professors (Dr.Michael Shaugnessy, who has done some of the long-term studies on Doman Babies) recognized the traits in me and asked about my history, which let me both have access to the data and see that I wasn't alone, and led me to get therapy to help with the emotional and social ramifestations. Nothing makes up for the physical, though. I have a severe visual-spacial cognitive disorder, which basically gives me very little depth perception, and tends to scramble
things which have both a vertical and horizontal component. Driving, or even riding in a car, is terrifying for me, although I've learned to judge it, because I can't judge the amount of space aroundme as well, and even when my intellectual mind knows that I'm safe, my visual senses tell me otherwise. I don't handle crowds of humans well for the same reason. I also have wearing of my joints and arthritis, which has been attributed to my being taught to keep a rigid posture and closed in body position to hide the muscle movements typical of CP. This didn't stop the movements, but what it did do was put the strain on my body. As a result, my bones and joints are aging at about 2 times my chronological age, and I will be much lessmobile over the long term because of this. I also deal with pain daily because of this.I am actually better off than many of the Doman children, because I only went through the program for 2 years.
Some children went through this for aslong as 10, and often were homeschooled or tutored to allow time for the program, which meant that the child had almost no social interaction. While it is much harder to study children who were exposed to the Doman methods at home, since for several years the books were extremely
popular, teens and adults who appear with similar symptoms can often recollect the activities which were listed there, when asked about their pre-school years. While the newer editions of the books look to be a bit 'softer'-they give time limits and talk of the importance of social interaction with other children, the original umpteen printings are still on library shelves all over the world. Robert Doman (Glenn's son) is still continuing to work with developmental disabilities, however the methods are now much softer and
more developmentally appropriate, and the therapies are now limited only to disabled children. Many of the techniques pioneered by Doman and Delacato are still used in early intervention programs-just in less stringent and structured ways. There is no denying that this work really pushed early intervention, but
like many experiments, it had consequences not expected. I don't blame my parents for deciding to do the program-at the time, it was the best option out there for helping a child with a disability. I do hope that my experiences have helped make it better for children now.
'toto' <scarecrow@wicked.witch> wrote in message "
雨涵爸爸,这个有用的网址没贴好,现把原文附上
西西妈妈
"http://neuro-www.mgh.harvard.edu/neurowebforu ... Articles/1.5.972.28
AM
Doman and Pseudoscience
This article submitted by D.G.B. on 1/5/97.Author's Email:
Dear members of this forum:
In response to an article placed by Ms Lundgaard "IAHP Doman" I felt it necessary to bother you by turning my response into an article. The truth is that the "Institutes for the achievement of Human potential" are no better than any other form of treatment for children with CP or a variety of other neurological disorders....Science does not need any more anecdotal reports of "miracle cures" of a given child with this or that problem, it needs SOLID, WELL THOUGHT OUT, CAREFULLY CONTROLLED studies, to determine the usefulness of any given treatment strategy. I can tell you of many infants and children who have "improved dramatically" with all sorts of bizarre treatments, exercise programs, "neuronal growth factors", -to name a few-. They all share the same lack of proof on carefully controlled studies; The results simply cannot be replicated by others. The people involved in providing these programs, however, are pocketing hughe amounts of money, have virtually no liability (as most kids improve some) BASICALLY BECAUSE WE ARE DEALING WITH AN IMMATURE NERVOUS SYSTEM! and parents are always trying to see the improvement, as little as it may be. I have seen many children who have been to Philadelphia, the parents spent their savings in order to travel there, not once but many times -I am writing to you from Mexico- and I can tell you of at least 3 kids for whom this program has DONE NOTHING, (other than disappoint and impoverish these unfortunate families). -Kids of course have made the progress expected for someone with their brain lesion and their age, they ALL do! The really sad side of this story is that these people in Philadelphia keep pushing these families, telling them that they now need to increase the length of the crawling exercises, use of the silly face mask, etc etc. Until the parents basically completely tire out, explode, or run out of money. By this time of course, they have become skeptical of just about any other treatment modality, all because some "doctor" has decided to use Science's good name and repute for his own financial benefit, What a Crime!!So please don't be ashamed of your Danish pediatrician, it sounds as though She's basing her medical recommendations on sound scientific data, not rumors or hearsay. I could tell you of a family member who attended and it did nothing for him but; Is this the way to judge the usefulness of a treatment strategy? the answer is: OF COURSE NOT !So please do not go about praising and pushing for a program that has NEVER passed scientific scrutiny, it probably never will either. It is, however, a place for misinformed but responsible parents (victims) of an "institution" which thrives on their despair and anxiety, their refusal to accept the realities of neurological disease and they will play the game for as long as the families are willing to afford it. Eventually most tire out, give up, and well.... there will always be a new ex-premature baby with massive brain damage, firstborn to a young, inexperienced couple who will hear comments such as yours and, since science is not offering a cure or real
solution to their problem, why not try pseudoscience? I apologize if I offended any believers on this program, but I strongly believe that this and other pseudoscience paradigms have to withstand the true test of science and they simply have not; Yet they get TV coverage, etc. (probably to increase ratings) putting -again- science's good name to their service (and financial profit).
Pseudoscience...???
This response submitted by lundega@ibm.net on 1/5/97.
Author's Email: Kresten LundegaardDear D.G.B.
As you prefer to write anonymously - no name, e-mail address, etc., I have to answer you here. Otherwise I would have preferred to discuss your attitude more privately...I do not know if you are a disappointed family-member (as you suggest in your posting) or you are a dogmatic trained doctor. But your posting looks like one of the two. Nevertheless, I want to comment on your views concerning (what you call) "pseudoscience": I did not know of the IAHP before the TV-broadcast some days ago, but whether or not they are "pocketing hughe amount of money" it proves to me, that there ARE other ways to cope with our diseased
children than "the normal". Especially as the offset for "the normal way" usually is, that "nothing really can be done, but your child is a sweet-looking baby..."I even heard stories about doctors advising parents of newly born CP-children to forget about that child and get a new - asap !As I certainly agree with you that it is a crime to misuse very sick people for the purpose of financial benefit, I do not share your view of misusing science, as all we've experienced is, that on the subject of brain-damage, there is no valid science at all. Besides some positive attitude towards OT/PT-treatment, the attitude from the pediatricians is more like "abandon ship"; give up all hope. And THAT is the real crime ! Because that eventually has the result, that NOTHING is done !If you have read my earlier postings on this forumm you are aware that we have attended Dr. Karen Pape's TES-program for a year now. With terrific results - admitted by Dr. Pape's clinic and by our local pediatrician (who, by the way, himself suffers from CP and has started the TES-program on himself after our success). The "scientific state" of the TES-program is very similar to the IAHP-program. However, the TES-program is quite cheap (I would say appr. 2K USD/year) and absolutely not as "harmful" as the IAHP-program, as TES-treatment takes place during the night when the patient is asleep and the treatment cannot be felt. And as for the "SOLID, WELL THOUGHT OUT, CAREFULLY CONTROLLED" studies: Please tell me about ONE, JUST ONE ! Even the results of OT/PT has NEVER been studied, much less documented. Nevertheless, it seems to work. For the above reason I reserve my right to be ashamed of the Danish pediatrician. Her attitude is the easy one: Stick to the books from the medical faculty - do not give false hope to the parents - the brain cannot be repaired, etc., etc. One of the stipulated facts about brains, is that brain-damage cannot be repaired because brain cells - unlike the rest of the human cells - do not regenerate. Karen Pape challenges this statement: It was put forward in the thirties and has never been neither proved nor challenged since. Nowadays, we use that "fact" to judge children as "lost" when they are 2-3 years old. This is at a time in their life, when only appr. 20% of their brain has developed...As you probably understand, I do not at all share your views on "science" versus "Pseudoscience". And I will go on - FOREVER - to tell parents of children with brain-damage, that there ARE other ways, other means - physicians who has not given up hope. The stories, institutes with terrific results (even in Europe) are numerous. Did you ever hear of the Burgau-institute in Germany ? Or the Peto-method from Hungary ? Cranio-sacral-therapy (wonder if I spelled that right?), accu-pressure, acupuncture...?I believe, that you cannot allow yourself to give up - for the sake of your children. At the same time I also believe, that as parents, we are the ultimate responsible - and we bear the ultimate responsibility of the treatment, we expose our children to. As I also believe, that we (the parents) are able to distinguish between the kind of treatments that we can "live up to" and what is absolutely impossible for our family, I will encourage ALL parents and family members not to close their ears and eyes, and look for every alternative to what you call "science" - and to judge it carefully..As long as we all agree, that there is no miracle cure, we do not start any given treatment on the basis of false expectations. Allthough my own background is "strictly science", I have to conclude, that in the area of CP and other brain damages, science as we know it is JUST NOT GOOD ENOUGH !!!I just have to take one look at Anne (our 4-year old daughter), the +20 other TES-patients I know, and compare them to the children, only undergoing normal OT/PT, to know that I'm right and you are wrong !As for "believers on this program": Remember that seeing is believing!Best regards,Kresten Lundegaard PS: Do not hesitate to tell us if you come about "science". We did not find it yet! "