As a young mum, I was genuinely allured by Glenn Doman’s approach.
It sounded scientific, ambitious, and hopeful. Who would not want to give their child every possible advantage? I tried it. I made the cards. I followed the routines. I believed I was opening doors that might otherwise stay closed.
But over time, questions began to creep in.
Quiet ones at first. Then louder.
Who Was Glenn Doman?
In the 1940s, Dr Glenn Doman began working with a small interdisciplinary group that included a neurosurgeon, physician, physiotherapist, speech therapist, psychologist, methodologist, and early childhood educator.
The group formed in response to an urgent challenge: how to support children who had suffered severe brain injuries. At the time, no one had ever fully recovered from such injuries, and the outlook was bleak.
Doman and his colleagues decided that the only way forward was to focus directly on the injured brain. But after years of work, they realised something important. It was not enough to work with the damaged brain itself.
What mattered was returning to the earliest stages of development. The brain needed the chance to go back and relearn fundamental developmental steps, such as crawling and moving on all fours. These stages, they believed, were essential for healthy brain development.
As their work progressed, neurosurgeons joined the group and began performing radical procedures. In some cases, large areas of disorganised brain tissue were surgically removed. These areas were thought to interfere with healthier regions, creating neurological noise.
After surgery and intensive developmental intervention, some children showed remarkable improvement. A small number were even able to pass standard IQ tests, sometimes achieving above average results.
Doman later said:
“Even in our most fantastic dreams, we could not have imagined that a child who had lost billions of brain cells could achieve results equal to or sometimes better than the average child.”
The Question That Changes Everything
Let us pause and think.
If a child who has lost part of their brain can perform just as well as a child with an intact brain, what does that say about the so‑called “normal” child?
Why does a child with twice the neurological capacity not automatically achieve more?
The conclusion feels uncomfortable but clear.
If we invested the same level of time, attention, and deliberate teaching into typically developing children as we do into children with brain injuries, many of them might far surpass average expectations.
In other words, the “normal” child may not be the gold standard we assume.
From my own perspective, as a follower of Vygotsky, this resonates deeply. I believe in social learning. The more adults engage with a child, talk with them, listen to them, and genuinely care, the more the brain develops. Neural connections strengthen. Language expands. Understanding deepens. And happiness grows.
The Doman Method: Why I Question It
Glenn Doman went on to develop his method of early childhood development through the Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential in Philadelphia. The idea was simple and compelling. The younger the child, the greater their capacity to learn. Parents, not institutions, should be the child’s primary teachers.
Learning, according to Doman, should begin as early as possible.
The method combines physical exercises based on innate reflexes with structured exposure to knowledge through flashcards. Programs promise early reading, encyclopedic knowledge, and even foreign languages.
Doman famously said learning should be a game that stops before the child gets tired. Interest, he argued, is sustained through speed and novelty.
As a young mum, this made sense to me. I wanted to do something meaningful. Something proactive. Something backed by science.
But as an experienced educator, I no longer support this method.
There are gentler, more ecological ways to support learning. Play. Conversation. Exploration. Shared curiosity.
The Good and the Difficult
To be fair, there are positives.
The method encourages deep parental involvement. It connects physical development with cognitive growth. Many children raised with the method show impressive abilities, both mentally and physically. It is also accessible, designed for home use, and well-documented.
But there is a cost.
In this approach, the child often becomes an object rather than a subject of learning. Adults decide what matters. Adults decide the pace. Adults decide the knowledge target.
Anyone who has watched the documentary Smart Babies may feel the tension. At some point, learning becomes tiring. Maintaining attention becomes the main struggle. Flashcards are waved in front of faces that simply want to move, explore, or rest.
There is also a strange discomfort in watching very young children perform adult knowledge on command. Sometimes it feels less like learning and more like training.
As a parent, the question that stayed with me was this:
Why do I need my toddler to distinguish a crow from a raccoon at eighteen months?
Will this encyclopedic knowledge still matter later? Will it stay? Will it nourish curiosity, or replace it?
In the documentary, a seventeen‑year‑old who had been raised using the Doman method could not recognise the airplane models he once learned as a child. The knowledge had not endured.
I found myself wondering whether it might have been better to play in the garden. To experiment with water. To listen to stories. To simply be together in learning.
Where I Stand Now
I understand why parents are drawn to the Doman method. I was one of them.
But with time, experience, and a deeper understanding of learning, I have come to value slower, relational, play‑based approaches. Learning that grows from interaction, not instruction. From joy, not urgency.
And I am curious.
What do you think?
