Psychomotor patterning, rarely referred to as the Doman-Delacato technique, is a

pseudoscientific Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable cl ...

approach to the treatment of

intellectual disabilities Intellectual disability (ID), also known as general learning disability (in the United Kingdom), and formerly mental retardation (in the United States), Rosa's Law, Pub. L. 111-256124 Stat. 2643(2010).Archive is a generalized neurodevelopmental ...

brain injury Brain injury (BI) is the destruction or degeneration of brain cells. Brain injuries occur due to a wide range of internal and external factors. In general, brain damage refers to significant, undiscriminating trauma-induced damage. A common ...

learning disabilities Learning disability, learning disorder, or learning difficulty (British English) is a condition in the brain that causes difficulties comprehending or processing information and can be caused by several different factors. Given the "difficulty ...

, and other cognitive diseases. The treatment is based on the largely-discredited theory of recapitulation. The method assumes that intellectual disabilities result from the failure of an individual to develop properly through the

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stages, and treatment primarily focuses on non-invasive

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in each of the stages. In one such stage, the '' homolateral stage'', a healthy child typically crawls by turning the head to one side while extending the arm and leg of the opposite side. The patterning treatment is applied to those unable to perform this motion, and involves passive intervention by 4-5 adults who assists the child in an effort to impose or induce the proper pattern onto the

central nervous system The central nervous system (CNS) is the part of the nervous system consisting primarily of the brain, spinal cord and retina. The CNS is so named because the brain integrates the received information and coordinates and influences the activity o ...

. The therapy normally lasts for 5 minutes and is repeated at least 4 times a day. Full treatment programs typically contain a range of exercises combined with

sensory stimulation In physiology, a stimulus is a change in a living thing's internal or external environment. This change can be detected by an organism or organ using sensitivity, and leads to a physiological reaction. Sensory receptors can receive stimuli ...

breathing exercises Conscious breathing encompasses techniques directing awareness toward the breathing process, serving purposes from improving respiration to building mindfulness. In martial arts like tai chi and qigong, breathing exercises are said to strengthen di ...

designed to increase oxygen flow to the brain, and systematic restriction and facilitation designed to promote hemispheric dominance.

The treatment modality of patterning was developed in the 1960s by Glenn Doman and Carl Delacato.

See also

References

Further reading