How Smart Is Your Baby?: Develop and Nurture Your Newborn's Full Potential

I'm not going to say what the book is about as I think some of the other reviews cover this fairly well. I'll recommend the book for the following reasons: 1) This is a nice companion to the book "What To Do About Your Brain-injured Child..." It is an organized guide that takes you step by step through the first four levels of the IAHP Developmental Profile showing you specifically what to look for during evaluations and giving you clear guidelines for how to address areas that need further improvement. Now a book is needed to address the next three levels. 2) Though I was seriously considering home schooling my child on the condition that he still be allowed to participate in school sports/activities to socialize, I probably wouldn't have bothered with a book like this prior to my son being born, figuring kids should be allowed to enjoy their childhood, but Doman makes alot of sense to me and I think you can still apply alot of their techniques and simultaneously let kids enjoy being children. 3) Had I used this book with my son from the start, I might have discovered some of the brain injuries much sooner and certainly addressed them via their techniques much sooner. So even if you don't want to make a super kid, I recommend you at least use the book as a diagnostic because it will help you catch things that your child's doctor might miss as he/she rushes through a so-called "well checkup" or more importantly it might help you catch subtle changes that occur in your child if he gets injured after he or she is born.

There is no longer any debate - a child's learning potential and cognitive capacity of all kinds - including learning ability, emotional attachment, musical prowess, and athletic skills, can be enhanced through the right environmental stimuli. While parents can be "overly concerned" about their role in promoting their child's brain development to the detriment of letting kids be kids, they should absolutely have some background in environmental influences on early brain development. There are things can parents can do to help sculpt those neural pathways in ways that will have long lasting benefits. This book is a great source of information in this area.

When I became pregnant with my first child six years ago, one of the first things that I did was go to a bookstore to begin my reference library for babies. Along with the classics "What to Expect When Your Expecting" and the like, there are a sea of infant stimulation books. I think that I read the good majority of them, if not all. At that time, "How Smart is Your Baby" had not been published, but the book that did stay with me was "How To Teach Your Baby to Read". It was the only book that actually teaches you how to joyously and systematically stimulate your child. I have since read "How Smart is Your Baby" and it combines the principles of infant stimulation contained in all the other books written by Janet, Douglas and Glenn Doman. Many years and three children later, I live the principles of this book every day. The joie de vivre that infuses our lives cannot be measured. This is an easy to read book. Even if you decide not to apply the principles, you owe it to your child to read this book. You'll never see child development in the same way again and your understanding of your own child will be the reward.

As an Engineer, I feel much more comfortable with proven methods over theory and hearsay. So, when I first read "How to Teach Your Baby Math" and "How to Teach Your Baby to Read", I was a bit skeptical. I wanted to see results for myself. After just a few months of working with our daughters, the methods' positive effects were obvious. We stopped wondering if the programs worked, and started wishing we had started from birth. "How Smart is Your Baby" was released the following year, the same month our son Vaughn was born. We applied the book's suggestions from the moment we brought him home from the hospital. Vaughn is our 3rd child, and he has far exceeded the developmental rate of his siblings. Childcare professionals have commented on how strong, alert, and developed he seems. Even our pediatrician was taken aback. At his 4 month check-up, I received the usual string of questions: "can he do this yet... is he doing that yet...". After repeatedly answering, "he's been doing that for over a month now", I ran down his list of milestones... crawled 10-football fields by 2 months, baby-talk and laughing by 2½, rolling over by 3, holding breath underwater, etc. For the first time in 3 babies, our doctor looked up from her clipboard and said "wow, whatever you guys are doing at home, keep it up... he's doing great!" "What we're doing at home" is covered quite explicitly in "How Smart is Your Baby?" This book is very reader-friendly and the suggestions are incredibly effective. It has become unquestionably clear to me that a child's abilities are dependent on his opportunities to develop those abilities. This book gives every parent the tools to play an active role in that development. Thank you, IAHP!

I feel so fortunate and thankful to have this valuable resource as a parent-to-be. How Smart is Your Baby? is a rather unique parenting guide that provides us with the knowledge and the tools necessary to help our children achieve their ultimate potential in life. For instance, Chapter 7 presents The Institutes Developmental Profile stating the significant stages of development from birth to six years of age. The Profile allows parents to evaluate their own children at home, thus finding the baby's strengths and weaknesses way before they would typically become apparent. This in turn enables parents to determine which areas, if any, need more attention, and to focus on them. Several Chapters explain when and how to evaluate the baby. While the book conveys rather complex medical concepts, it is written in an easy to understand, engaging format. The book provides specific programs to do with your child starting at birth. Examples include: visual and auditory stimulation, tactile program, mobility, balance, language development, and the manual competence programs. Daily checklists of program requirements are included for easy record keeping. The book also provides detailed instructions on how to build various equipment at home to enhance our programs, such as the crawling track, a visual stimulation board, a neck collar, the dowel traversing a doorway, and a brachiation ladder. Thanks to How Smart is Your Baby? I've gained the understanding that so many developmental problems children face in our society today (i.e. learning disabilities) can be prevented when parents know how to help their children develop properly as opposed to by accident in the most critical first year of life. The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential offer many other resources for parents of both well and brain injured children that can be used upon completion of your newborn program.