Psychomotor Patterning Summary

Psychomotor patterning was introduce to cure mental retardation, brain injury, and learning disabilities, in 1960. Psychomotor patterning article by Steven Novella, talks about how until 1970’s, scientist said that psychomotor patterning should be discarded as a therapy. Even though it was proven to not have any link to helping brain problems, people still use it. Patterning was invented by Glenn Doman and C. Delacato, they believed that mental retardation is cause by failing to develop properly in the phylogenetic stages. Their treatment consist of having the patients crawl in a certain way that supposedly helps develop the proper pattern in the central nervous system. Patients supposed to do this for five minutes four times a day. This treatment …show more content…
Even the American Academy of pediatrics agree that the treatment “patterning” has not been prove to help and that it may actually be harmful. In the 60’s and 70’s there were some clinical trials to try to prove that “patterning” works, but they didn’t prove to help the brain. Doman and Delacato were criticize for giving false hope to the parents of the patients. Even though they were criticize they still put the patterning technique in a program at the Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential and it’s also use at the National Academy of Child Development. There was also a case were the technique “patterning” was in a program called “Miracle Babies” where they said that it actually helped a baby overcome brain problems. Many parents try the program but at the end they just waste their money and got emotional damage. Since many children with mental issues still grow, even though at a slower past, they may seem to be making an improvement, but it has nothing to do with the “patterning” technique. Both institution require parents to make a significant change in their life, and they say that if the program didn’t work is because it’s the parents