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South African daisy. Feverfew. Greater stitchwort.
Angelo grins. He shows off his two front teeth. He gazes intently at the purple prickly pear. He furrows his brow. At times, he looks away.
Over the morning's breakfast at the carriage house in Oaks, Calafati, 32, will present more large flash cards, many handmade, that cover a variety of subjects: European flags, mammals, forest animals, composers, even historical farm tractors and military helicopters with model numbers.
Sikorsky CH-53. Kamov Ka-25. Boeing CH-47 Chinook. . . . Henry Hudson. Marco Polo. Christopher Columbus.
"Christopher Columbus found the Americas while seeking a sea route to India," Calafati, a gymnast by training, says, sounding peppy as she shares occasional trivia.
Angelo gurgles. At 13 months, he may not talk, but he's an old hand at this. Like his two older siblings, he's gone through these paces since birth.
The Better Baby Program, as Angelo's regimen is informally known, is a product of the controversial Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential in Wyndmoor.
The program, which has a following of thousands worldwide, emphasizes its own brand of early childhood education - one that has its share of outspoken detractors.
It focuses on early stimulation conducted with specific frequency, intensity and duration. In recent years, the program has been touted by supporters as a way to counteract the loss of neurons, a process known as pruning, that neurologists agree occurs in the early years. Based at home, it teaches reading, mathematics, encyclopedic knowledge, music and gymnastics, all from birth.
The use of flash cards, which the institutes call bits of intelligence, has drawn the harshest criticism.
"If what you want is someone who can spit back nuggets of information, then fine, you can get that. Flash cards do a wonderful job at that," said child psychologist Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, coauthor of Einstein Never Used Flashcards, who's also a director at Temple University's Infant Lab.
"What do they do better because they had algebra when they were 8 rather than 13?" she said. "I await the evidence."
The process is certainly an odd sight - and some subject choices seem bizarre.
Calafati, though, points out that most of the bits she uses relate to the family's everyday experiences.
When the children spotted an old farm machine on a trip, Calafati wasn't satisfied to simply call it a tractor. "I would feel like I'm cheating," she said. Once home, she made bits, sharing pictures of specific models.
As Calafati explained, anything introduced early gives Angelo - and his siblings, Carmella, 4, and Gaetano, 6 - a greater likelihood of understanding it later.
"I think it's a chance to expand their brain," she said. "At this point, it's really just input."
Glenn Doman, 88, a physical therapist by training, founded the institutes in 1955 to pursue unconventional methods of teaching skills to brain-injured children. While that is still the center's focus - and controversial in its own right - Doman expanded his reach by applying similar principles to healthy babies through a program that promised to optimize brain development.
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