I’m very sorry that only now we have the time to post about the Glenn Doman training that we took 2 weeks ago. Joan is still hospitalized, but she is getting better, so I post this while waiting for her sleeping.
The training that we took is the most basic training of a series of training provided by The Institutes for The Achievement of Human Potential (IAHP). But don’t get fooled by the term “most basic”, because in reality, the training will explain to you all the basic therapies from IAHP. And this training is not for the faint-hearted: 5 full days, from 9am until 7pm every day, with only 10 minutes break for every hour, and a short 45 minutes lunch. These all are needed because the training materials is so much, and none of it are not important.
The training is a video training. It means that we don’t get a trainer that directly teach us the materials. Instead, we watch a pre-recorded video. The video is a recording of the same training conducted in IAHP headquarters in Philadelphia, and from the context used, I safely assumed it was recorded around 10-15 years ago. Wow, does it mean that the content is outdated? Well, that’s exactly what I was thinking. But, the fact of the matter is, not much has changed in the basic principles of the IAHP therapy. Of course, they use new or modified tools from the one mentioned in the video, but we will also get the latest updates from the IAHP staffs that come in the training.
So, the presentation technique is more-or-less like this. First, we listen to the video training for around 50 minutes. Because it is a video, we surely can’t raise our hand and ask questions. So, what we need to do is to note those questions or other things that we don’t understand. Then, during the 10 minutes break, we can ask questions to the IAHP staffs. The staffs are not ordinary staffs, but senior staffs from IAHP. The most prominent one is Janet Doman, daughter of Glenn Doman, the current Director of IAHP. Then we have Suzan from intelligence team, Leia from physical, and Yukie and Dr Lee from nutrition and medical. Janet, Suzan and Leia came from Philadelphia, Yukie from Tokyo and Dr Lee from Beijing. All will answer questions on their own field of work.
Outside of the training materials, one thing of interest is how cold was the training room 
Janet explained to us that according to their research, the amount of oxygen needed by the brain depends on the room temperature. So, they intentionally make the room as cold as possible to reduce the amount of oxygen that we need, so we can stay alert and more focus on the training. You can be assured that we all are frozen, and almost everyone wear a jacket or sweater, especially those from Indonesia. By the way, from the total of 44 participants, 13 came from Indonesia.
The training content itself is amazing and mind-opening. If you look in the Internet, a lot of people say that the techniques used by IAHP are controversial. After listening to the training, I personally think that their techniques are not controversial at all. Yes, it is true, they go against the mainstream of medical world. But, going against the mainstreams doesn’t make it controversial. Personally, I think they are very logical and have a very strong basic reasoning. Well, Glenn Doman himself admitted that most of the time they cannot explain scientifically why if they do patterning (for example) will help a child to crawl, creep or even walk. And these are the questions asked by medical experts. But, what IAHP can do is to show the results: they have complete record on how many children can see, hear, feel, walk, write, etc. With a slight joke, Glenn said that perhaps the people who will understand their work are engineers, who often don’t care about “how” and will only look at the result. Isn’t it true that what we need in the end is the results?
With all my heart, I really want to explain the content of the training on our website, because I really want to share with everyone. But in the end, I decided not to, because of some reasons.
Number one, I need to honor IAHP’s copyright. They have what they have based on 50 years of experience on the field. At least I have to acknowledge that.
Number two, it will be very difficult to summarize a 5-day training into 1 blog posting, or even a few blog postings. It will be much better for you to take the training. Or, at least you can buy books from IAHP or Gentle Revolution, like the book What To Do About Your Brain-Injured Child, How To Teach Your Baby To Read, etc. All these books explained the IAHP techniques in detail, and will really help you understand the techniques used by IAHP.
In addition, aside from the books, your can also find the IAHP techniques from a lot of sources, like IAHP own website. For example, you can find The Institutes Development Profile, list of books, programs for brain-injured children, etc.
The basic thing about IAHP technique is its simplicity. First, we will be taught how to assess our child based on the Development Profile. From that assessment, we can see even though Joan (for example) is 6 years old, from the brain development perspective, she is equal to a 4 months old baby. Then, we are taught therapy techniques needed to increase this “neurological age”, so we can catch up. Every column and row on the Development Profile have its own techniques, and we need to choose the best technique based on our child’s needs. For example, for Joan, we already created an ideal program in several parts. For her eyes, we will use a lot of contrast black-and-white colors, either in wallpapers, flash-cards, computer projection, etc. For her ears, we will use common sounds like bells, glasses, our own voice, etc. For her touch, we will use soft and rough combs, velvet, feather, etc. For her motor skills, we will create an inclined floor to help her crawl, plus patterning.
In addition to that is nutritional program, by avoiding food that cause the most allergies, like dairy products, tomatoes, banana, etc. We will also monitory close our house hygiene, including clean air, dust-free, etc.
The main point of all these can be summarized into a few important points. First, human brain will always develop and adapt to our needs. So, there is no such thing as brain stop developing and nothing we can do about it. Second, to stimulate the brain, all techniques that we are taught need to be done in high frequency, right intensity, and long duration. This will ensure the brain can adapt to the inputs that we give. Third, all these programs depends on the general health of the child: a healthy child will take this program faster. So, nutrition and healthy environment will be really helpful.
For parents with brain-injured child, like Cerebral Palsy, Autism, Epilepsy, mental retardation, spastic, etcl, we really really really recommend the IAHP techniques. If you can afford it (financially), please do take the training, we highly recommend it. Or at least, read the book What To Do About Your Brain-Injured Child and the other How To series, and try the techniques yourself. We haven’t try it, but based on discussions with other parents that have, the result is much better compared to other “conventional” techniques like physiotherapy, epileptic drugs, etc.
If you have any questions on Glenn Doman or IAHP techniques, how to take the training, etc. please fell free to contact us. We will be delighted to help you.
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