Intelligence is the ability to acquire knowledge and skills. Over the years their has been a lot of educationalmethods and products that have claimed that the use of highly stimulating methods will help infants and small children develop greater levels of intelligence,creativity and academic ability Two of the popular education methods used are the Shichida method and the doman method The Shichida method is popular in Japan and the Doman method is popular in the United States.
The Shichida Method focuses on the right- brain training system. This method has more than 40 years of research and over 35 years of track record in Japan that has been successful. The Shichida Method has grown phenomenally to be recognized as the number One brain development program in Japan. This method has had great success in young children since 2002. (Yasin, 2014) An example how this method was successful was applied in a classroom setting in Japan. The example how it worked was “one Shichida style classroom provided speed reading training for children with low academic ability, a marked increase in academic performance occurred over a short period of time. When they began the training, these
children had no patience, had difficulty listening to others and were unable to sit still during the lessons but speed reading exercises transformed them into children with a surprising amount of concentration who listened intently to their teacher. “(Mitchell 1996)
One of the problems I can see with this method that it really only relays on parents stories and there is no scientific evidence that this methods works. According this method even though parents have said they have had success their is really no evidence to support that this method increases intelligence ability at a young age. As a parent I would be interested in trying this method but I would need to see more factual data that this method worked.
Another method that is used is the Doman method. The founder of this method was Glen Doman. Glenn Doman was one of the first to specialize in child brain development, and to discover how the brain develops and what role the environment plays in brain development. He believes that new born children have genius potential if developed in the right way. Glenn Doman claims this methods works and is successful to help children with brain problems and injuries and they are able to recover and live a normal life. His methods focuses on right brain training which balances the right and left parts of the brain and combine the body and mind.(Lilienfeld, 2015)The method also relies on personal stories and there is no scientific evidence that shows this method being successful in the United States. This method is very controversial. Even these methods are controversial due to no factual scientific evidence parents are still drawn to try methods to increase child’s intelligence.
After reading about both methods I have come to the conclusion that a great explanation why these methods work is because with training and repetition children can achieve success.
Since there is no scientific evidence how it works it is hard for me to believe it was successful. I believe their has to be more research done to determine if these methods are successful or not. We can not rely just on personal stories to say these methods work. As a parent for me to actually try these methods I would have to say I would have to have more scientific evidence proving that these methods work not just rely on personal stories.
References
Lilienfeld,O. Scott, Lynn, Jay, Steven, Namy, L. Laura, Woolf,J. Nancy. Psychology :FROM INQUIRY TO UNDERSTANDING , Third Edition , Boston MA: Pearson Learning.
Yasin, G., Nawab, S., Bhatti, K. K., & Nazir, T. (2014). Relationship of intellectual stimulation, innovations and SMEs performance: Transformational leadership a source of competitive advantage in SMEs.Middle-East Journal of Scientific Research, 19(1), 74-81.
