The National Association for Child Development
NACD, The National Association for Child Development, is an international organization dedicated to investigating, developing, and implementing methodologies to enhance neurological/brain function and assist individuals in achieving their innate potential. Under the direction of founder Robert J. Doman, Jr., NACD has created an approach to human development and the remediation of developmental, educational, and neurological problems based upon the gestalt of the individual. The NACD Neurodevelopmental Approach utilizes a neurologically based, targeted, and eclectic treatment methodology. The efficacy of NACD's Neurodevelopmental Approach has been demonstrated with over 40,000 clients, from infant to geriatric, whose function has ranged from comatose to gifted.
NACD's national office is located in Ogden, Utah. We serve clients from around the world, with chapters throughout the United States, as well as a chapter in the U.K. and a chapter in India. NACD provides individual assessments and individually designed developmental and educational programs which are implemented by individuals, families and schools.
At NACD we believe that one's innate potential is rarely, if ever, achieved, and that through the application of specific appropriate neurodevelopmental and cognitive activities, virtually all of us can achieve a higher level of function and improve our quality of life.
One of NACD's imperatives is to redefine education by changing the perspective from one in which the primary goal is to teach skills to one in which the primary goal is to assist individuals in achieving their innate potential, through an educational opportunity that includes neurodevelopmental and cognitive development.
NACD's unique neurodevelopmental approach has been utilized with individuals from all over the world and continues to have tremendous impact, not only for normal populations, but also for individuals with issues ranging from Autism and ADD to Alzheimer's. Additionally, NACD has worked to assist those in the gifted and talented range as well as those striving to achieve peak performance. NACD has altered perspectives regarding the potential of individuals with a broad range of disabilities and labels, as well as that of "normal."
Entering the 21st century, NACD has begun an initiative to "raise the bar" on the function and well-being of the world's population. Being pioneers in the latest methodologies for developing processing and cognitive abilities, and using the basic building blocks of neurological function, NACD has created a program to establish norms for sequential processing and an educational program to enlighten people about the significance of developing processing skills. This initiative, The Simply Smarter Project, hopes to educate people about the significance of sequential processing and then help develop these critical skills, thus raising the bar on our expectations for global function.
NACD has developed hundreds of activities to develop and enhance cognitive skills, including specific brain enhancing software ranging from simple programs in the early 1980s to its advanced Simply Smarter System.
