Psychomotor patterning

Psychomotor patterning, rarely referred to as the Doman-Delacato technique, is a pseudoscientific approach to the treatment of intellectual disabilities, brain injury, learning disabilities, and other cognitive diseases.

[1] The method assumes that intellectual disabilities result from the failure of an individual to develop properly through the phylogenetic stages, and treatment primarily focuses on non-invasive physical therapy in each of the stages.

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.

Full treatment programs typically contain a range of exercises combined with sensory stimulation, breathing exercises designed to increase oxygen flow to the brain, and systematic restriction and facilitation designed to promote hemispheric dominance.

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