Phone Conversation with the IAHP

Early Learning Teaching Your Child Math
1

Hi everyone, I’m finally posting the transcription of the phone conversation I had with Connie Breyer of the Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential (IAHP) a couple days ago.

For those of you who are not familiar the original statement in question appeared here from our friend Chris:
http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-to-read/reading-and-maths/msg8358/#msg8358

I was a bit confused and talked with the Institutes myself and thought I would pass on the information to all of you!

I originally emailed the IAHP and this was the reply I received:
[b]
Dear Elizabeth,

Thank you for your letter concerning the math program. You have obviously been doing a wonderful program with your son. Congratulations.

Thank you for taking the time to write out about your dismay over the misinformation that was communicated via the online forum.

I would like very much to talk with you personally to clear up these misconceptions. If you e-mail me your phone number and a good time for me to call you, I will be happy to follow-up.

With kind regards,
Connie Breyer
Assistant Registrar[/b]

Here is the phone conversation I had with Ms. Breyer. The Institutes can be reached at 1-800-344-TEACH

“Good afternoon this is Connie Breyer.”

“Hi, this is Elizabeth Staub calling…”

“Oh yay! [laughs] Good, I’m glad you called back. Yeah, so, let’s get this thing straightened out. Um, yeah, so what forum is this?”[She originally had called me but I had to call her back because of a crying baby!]

“Um, this particular forum was on a website called brillbaby.com”

“Oh yeah we’re hearing a lot about that!”

“Oh really? Well that’s neat…But, yeah, what this person was saying is that they had had a lot of success with the reading program but had tried the math program and it didn’t work, and they phoned you and said that you stated that the ability would not be retained past three years old which didn’t make any sense to me considering you still sell and promote stuff for the math program and why would you sell stuff that you say doesn’t work…”

“Well, now, the thing is that in the book it does say that there is this window of opportunity and it closes somewhere between two-and-a-half and three-years-old. Um, after that age, usually, the children cannot see, they cannot distinguish the quantity, in the same way that you and I cannot distinguish 88 dots from 89 dots. You and I, the only way we’d know is by counting. But a tiny baby – a child – can distinguish which one is 88 and 89 instantly.”

“Well now, I knew that there was that window of opportunity but like, with my son, he started with the math program when he was almost 30 months and did great, and that was a year ago he’s 3 ½ now and can still perceive quantity, so, shouldn’t children who are trained with this program, the ability be retained?”

“There are some children that are able to retain the ability to distinguish quantity but that is not the norm. The point of the whole program, is to set a foundation for math, for the rest of their lives. Once they understand that a number is a quantity, not an abstract numeral, then everything that has to do with mathematics makes logical sense. Adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, everything. Once they have that, then they’re set for life, and then they are able to transfer the quantities to numerals. But it’s that understanding that never goes away.”

“But, now, when they’re older, they can still understand math, and do instant equations and such?”

“Oh yes absolutely. Our children are fabulous mathematicians.”

“Oh okay, well, that makes a little bit more sense then…”

“Yes there’s just something that happens in our brains that makes it so we no longer can distinguish the quantities.”

“Hmm… well that’s really interesting.”

“That’s why we don’t recommend starting our program, with children older than three years old, because we can’t guarantee that it will work. There definitely are some children though who are four and five and can pick it up but,”

“Now I’ve heard that, with autistic people, sometimes, even when they’re older they can sometimes still distinguish the quantities, even without training.”

“Like Rainman?”

“Yes…”

[b]“Yes, and for our brain-injured program, we teach the dot cards no matter how old the children are. They are neurologically that age, even though they’re not chronologically. So, we use that program with all of our children [in the brain-injured program], even if they’re adults.”

“So, is that making any more sense then? At first it was like, hope they don’t turn everybody off to our program.”
[/b]
“Yeah, no, we wouldn’t want that and I’m really glad that you were able to clear these things up for me.”

“Yes, me too, and I’m so glad you took the time to call, it looks like you’ve done a fabulous program with your child. And, he has that now for life.”

I then told her some thank you’s for their wonderful organization and such, and told her about how I had found their books at the library and have really enjoyed learning with my son.

She was a very nice lady and I’m really glad that I had this conversation with her, it really cleared some things up for me and I thank you Chris for motivating me to call.

When I first read the post in “Reading and Maths” it was not clear that “the ability” the was being referred to was just talking about perceiving quantities, from reading the post I thought that Chris was saying that the staff of the Institutes were saying that “Yes, kids under two can do math with our program but once they turn three all the abilities will be lost” which of course didn’t make much sense. I know that in later posts Chris had mentioned more about it only being the ability to perceive quantity that would be lost but it wasn’t all completely clear and I’m really glad I got this confirmation that yes, kids do lose the ability to perceive quantity but no, they will not lose their understanding of mathematics and generally go onto be “fabulous mathematicians”.

Knowing this has made the many stories of failure with the math program make so much more sense. I had always thought that if quantity training was initiated before the third birthday then the child would have that for life. But now it is clear that quantity training is not enough in order to be able to go on to be proficient in math.

Like I have said before and as Chris mentioned, the Doman program is not actually teaching quantity recognition but rather labeling it. A tiny child can already see the difference between 28 and 29 dots without any training - he just doesn’t have a name for it. With the Doman program you are first giving those quantities names and then teaching the child the basics of arithmetic - the vocabulary for putting numbers together and taking them apart (“plus”, “minus”, “multiplied by”, “divided by”).

After all of this dialog about trying to figure out the high failure rate of the math program here is my conclusion - that teaching names for math (names of quantities like “twenty three” and “ninety seven” and names of actions like “plus” and “minus”) isn’t enough: the child has to progress to being able to manipulate numbers in his head and know numbers front and back (know each quantity by heart and know it’s relation to other numbers, like knowing that 50 is half of 100 and is one less than 51 and 30 less than 80, etc.), basically, getting to the point where it’s all in his head, knowing numbers and their relationship to other numbers by heart.

Chris mentioned a wonderful point saying “If you ask a fluent reader to explain how they read they would simple state that they can. It is possible that the mental manipulation of quantity develops to the stage where the entire process takes place at a subconscious level.”

I hope I explained this well, but things are starting to make sense to me as to why there are a great number of children who “appeared to be able to recognize quantity” (which in fact they could) but lost the ability once they got older. I hope other people can see the story-line that I’m seeing as to why teaching names (for quantities and actions) isn’t enough, the child must truly master the language of mathematics before he loses the ability to discern quantities, otherwise the training will not pay off in the way it is advertised.

I am eternally thankful to Chris for motivating me to make this call, as it is possible that I wouldn’t have known this until it was too late and my son’s ability mysteriously disappeared. As I have mentioned he is 3 1/2 and can still discern quantities so apparently he is not the norm, but ever since I made this call we’ve been going full-speed into math and I am introducing numerals now. We have actually started a countdown to Christmas to work with a different number each day and exhaust all the possibilities of that number so I can be sure that he has a firm grasp of each number. I will continue to use quantity cards as long as possible in hopes that the ability can be retained, because like I mentioned in another post I have heard of adults who can still do it and have an inkling that there is still a possibility that it can be retained. I recently posted a blog about it if you want to know more.

There’s more that could be said but I hope that this post is informative to everyone!

2

What an excellent post!!

Thanks so much for calling and transcribing the call! Yes, it all makes much more sense now!

Thanks too to Chris for having initiated this conversation topic in the first place!

3

hmmm one thing i don’t get though is, how is it that they lose perception of quantity but can still be great mathematicians? I mean what do they use to do equations for example if they lost the numbers in their heads?

4

Wow - that helped me a lot - thanks. I have been wondering lately if math was worth the extra effort, and this has inspired me to continue.

5

Thank you for the wonderful post. It did clear up a lot of things. Thank you for taking the time to do all this.

6

Thank you for the post!

I wonder “what they lost.” Was it being able to differenciate between 91 and 92? Could they still differenciate between 17 and 20? If they had a good base of quantity understanding I imagine they could be great mathematicians. Just adding and subtracting doesn’t make one a great mathematicians, but thinking, manipulating data, numbers…

My son is a gifted mathematician, he is 8 and his school skipped him a grade in math since 1st grade and he is still not challenged! and how I wish I had known about the Doman Method when he was younger; imagine the posibilities. The way he thinks is amazing! One thing I always did that I believe helped him was that I always asked him “how did you do it?” And his answers always blow me away. He is able to pull things apart and put them together in ways that I would have never thought of.

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Nohayo, I think the meaning of “they lose perception of quantity but can still be great mathematicians” is that they can no longer distinguish the quantity (if showed them dot card, they can’t tell which one is 88 dots without counting them), but they can understand what 88 stands for, that when you add 1, it will become 89 and if divided by 2 it will become 44.

I’ve started the maths equation with my one year old son but due to the time constraint (I’m working so I only show him one or two sessions per day) I don’t think my program will be as successful as most people, but I still try my very best to teach him.

I wish all of you who have started this tremendous program can achieve successful result!

8

Thank you to Elizabeth for transcribing the call.

Their acknowledgment that the ability to recognize quantity is generally lost answers part of this puzzle. Why is this salient point not made in their book?

Can they provide details of any website to support their claim that children retain the ability to perform complex mental calculations? Are they actually making this claim? They should have examples of children around 4,5 and six with this ability.

9

they do have many many examples of kids of all ages able to perform complex mental calculations
i have met many doman kids in there twenties who can still do amazing mental calculations
also at the IAHP’s 7 day workshop they have kids ages 3 to 12 doing complex mental calculations

but i think Elisabeth is right about how the child must truly master the language of mathematics before he loses the ability to discern quantities, otherwise the training will not pay off in the way it is advertised.
if fact this is my big worry i don’t think my daughter has really master the language of mathematics
but i think that is my problem and not the programs

10

Thank you Elizabeth and Chris for sharing your thoughts and conclusions on this topic with the BrillKids community.

After reading the book “How To Teach Your Baby Math” it was not clear to me why young children were taught numerals so early when the dot cards were being used so successfully to teach quantity and teach what to many people are quite complex math concepts. I thought that it would only aid their loss of quantity recognition and surely they would become familiar with numerals without a lot of instruction from us just as my daughter works out the sounds when reading by herself. Watching the “How To Teach Your Baby Math” DVD did not make this clearer.

So thank you for explaining to me how the whole math program fits together.

Tatianna, could you please explain what you believe you have done to date that has resulted in your daughter not really mastering math. How long have you been doing the math program with your daughter? How many sets of quantity do you do in a typical day? How many equations do you show in a typical day? How many days a week do you enjoy math with your daughter?

I am asking because I am just about to recommence the math program with my son Hayden and I was planning to do less sets a day then set out in the book and DVD, but after reading what Elizabeth and Chris have learnt in the past week about the “deadline” for undertaking the numerals section of the course I will try my best to do more sets a day than I have planned.

I am truely thankful,

Mum.

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Mum

i don’t know if she has mastered math or not as i don’t test her
she doesn’t answer the problem solving games so i don’t really know

if she hasn’t mastered math it’s because she learned dots 1 though 100 before she was 8 months old
she could not talk at the time so i took it on faith that she learned the dots
then because we moved 3 times in the next year we stopped the math program till last month when she turned 2
so it was almost a year and a half with no math dots at all :frowning:
now that she is 2 we are starting subtraction with her she likes it but i am unsure if she really understands
but we will keep at it
my biggest regret is that we stopped the program for so long as i am not sure we can make up for all that lost
time

but one happy point is that my younger brother and sister both got a little bit of the math program
when they where very small my mom showed them cards 1 through 20 or 30 then stopped
but even that little bit helped them both do very very well in math
we have a big family (6 kids) all of us were home schooled and we all are quite bad at math
except my youngest brother and sister
the only difference in there education is the math dots
so i feel even a little bit does help
but if i had to do it all over again i would follow the program perfectly with no stops
hope that helps
tatianna

12

Oh ! Thanks Laisan :slight_smile: You really explained that well !

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With ths info, I’m more than motivated to teach my baby Math. We’re doing division now…

Thanks a lot Elizabeth and Chris!

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Thank you Tatianna for sharing your experiences. I believe that the more we all know about what has worked and not worked the more prepared we will be when we need to modify our programs to accommodate our ever changing children.

From what I have read I think you are doing a fantastic program with your daughter. One day soon I am sure you will be there when the bright light goes on inside her and you know for sure that all of your fun times together teaching math have paid off.

There are so many of these magical times ahead for you. One of my most treasured moments was a cold grey Sunday earlier this year when Penny, who was 3 at the time, dragged her little chair over to where her Daddy and I were sitting and ran to get “The Cat in the Hat”. She sat down and said “Daddy, I am going to read this to you.” and she did. It was beautiful. :smiley:

15

Excellent post regarding your conversation with Connie at IAHP. It has motivated me to “restart” math with my 2 1/2 year old.
Thanks!
Marie.

16

Thanks for clearing all that up - it does make sense that the mathematical ability is not lost even if the ability to identify quantity gets lost. I am still wondering however why Hunter can still recognise quantity and perhaps that is because you have not stopped using the dots with him even when he knows numerals - what would make part of the brain lose a connection that is constantly being used?

I have had a short break from the maths programme with my daughter (went away and worked full time for a week so couldn’t get anything done) but will continue now. I am not showing it as intensively as they suggest and think perhaps I should speed it up so its good to know why it needs to go so fast.

17

That part abt kids being unable to preceive dots after 3 might be more for kids who have not been expose to dot cards…I started my boy at 2 and we still uses the dots cards when he’s 4. We continued with the cards cos he likes them…During the program, whenever we do problem solving, like what GD said, kids get them right most of the time and so did my boy. When I finally asked him how did he get the answer, he told me he “sees” dots moving in his head…

Btw, we are not very intensive into the program at all…we do at least 4-5 days a week with 3 sessions all conducted within 1 hr together with EK cards and memory trainings unlike the program suggested 3 sessions thru the day. I am a working mum and time with my boy is precious. We cherished this special bonding moments which is fun for both of us…

We dun test them cos that create stress…hence the program do problem solving which gives kids the choice of the answer. If they had not thought abt it ( which is fast like lightning!) , how would they come up with the right answer almost each time …so that shd answer most mummies’ question of whether has my child mastered math?

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vianbabe, That’s great to hear that your son is six years old and is still able to perceive quantity. Like I’ve said before, I have a hunch that it is possible to help children retain the ability to perceive quantity, possibly even into adulthood. Your story is of great inspiration, thanks for sharing! :slight_smile:

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Hi everybody, I recently posted a new blog post about this conversation with the Institutes and thought I would share it with you all: http://worldsbesteducation.blogspot.com/2008/11/math-mystery.html

A lot of it is similar to what was written here but there are a lot of new thoughts as well as I have had time to be able to think about it a little more and articulate it better. :yes:

Enjoy!

20

thanks Mum for your kind words
karma to you for all you success with your child reading