And Baby makes 3 + 3 Bangor pediatrician teaches parents to help their children learn

Without pointing or counting on his fingers, 4-year-old Humam Al-Fdeilat was readily able to tell a small circle of admiring adults that there were four small wooden blocks forming a square on the exam room floor.

When Dr. Leonardo Leonidas picked up one of the blocks, Humam promptly identified it as one of the four. “One fourth,” suggested Leonidas. He picked up a second block. “Now how many?” he asked the self-confident little boy. “Two fourths!” Humam responded with a huge grin. Everyone cheered.

Leonidas, who has practiced pediatrics in Bangor for more than 30 years, is on a mission to make Maine children smarter. Long an advocate of beginning a child’s deliberate education in infancy – even before birth – Leonidas recently published his second book to help guide parents and other caregivers.

“Baby Math” is a slender, simply written volume that any parent can learn from. The concepts and exercises are easy to understand and perform. The “tools” of teaching – fingers, blocks, Cheerios – are readily available.

Leonidas recommends that parents begin stimulating their babies’ brains at birth with simple concepts of quantity, proportion and relative position. “We can look at math as another foreign language that our children should learn. And just like any languages, it is better started as early as possible,” the book states in an introductory section.

“Baby Math” suggests visual, auditory and tactile exercises for babies just a few hours old. On Friday at Leonidas’ office, Humam’s younger brother Laith, 6 weeks old, gazed attentively as his father, Abdullah Al-Fdeilat, showed him his raised index finger. Al-Fdeilat, a native of Jordan, slowly turned his hand so his finger pointed in three different directions – up, sideways, down – softly repeating the Arabic word for “one.”

He gently stroked the baby’s cheek, once, then clapped his hands together quietly, once. In this way, Al-Fdeilat explained, Laith’s brain is stimulated and imprinted with the concept of “one.” Al-Fdeilat and his Maine-born wife, Renae, soon will add the concept of “two” in the same way.

“Part of the reason we chose Dr. Leo for our pediatrician is because he believes in education as much as we do,” Renae Al-Fdeilat said, watching her sons. On trips to visit her husband’s family in Jordan, she said, she has been struck with how much the Arab culture values education. “The attention they pay to their children’s education is stronger there than anywhere else I’ve been,” she said.

It also probably doesn’t hurt that Leonidas was Renae’s physician when she was growing up, she said, exchanging smiles with the gregarious Philippine doctor.

She’s aware of the argument that parents shouldn’t structure their young children’s lives too much, or fill up their carefree minds with weighty academic notions. “But this is fun for them,” she said, watching Humam manipulate the wooden blocks. “And if it’s fun, and they’re learning …”

Leonidas, who is also an assistant professor of pediatrics at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, said there are plenty of simple things parents can do to make their children smarter. Many of these are intuitive to some parents – reducing background noise, making eye contact with their babies, interacting frequently and with animation, reading, singing, talking and counting. But some young parents, especially those who were raised without such attentions, need instruction in these essential practices.

Beyond these basic techniques, Leonidas said, parents should incorporate specific language and math exercises into their daily interactions with their babies and young children.

“The more you play and stimulate a baby’s brain, the happier and smarter they will become,” he said. And happy, smart children, he noted, are likely to be healthier – not only during childhood but throughout their lives.

“Baby Math” is available for $17 at Borders and Mr. Paperback in Bangor. His first book, “How to Have a Smart Baby … Smart Child,” was published in 1999 and soon will be reissued in a second edition. He also is working on a third volume, aimed at teaching parents to recognize certain illnesses in their children in order to be better health care consumers.

Leonidas appears on “WABI-TV5 Morning News” every other Thursday.

More information on Leonidas’ approach to raising children is available at his Web site: www.brilliantbaby.com