Just How Smart Are Babies?

Ask any new parent if they think their baby is smarter than average and you don't need to be a genius to guess the answer: "Yes," of course!

But behind that dazed and innocent look, there may be a mental powerhouse in the making: in the first year of life, a newborn's brain grows at a rate that could be described as explosive.

"From zero to 1, the baby's brain, the head, grows about 60 percent of its ultimate increase," Dr. Walter Molofsky, head of pediatric neurology at New York's Beth Israel Hospital told Early Show national correspondent Tracy Smith.

But it's not necessarily that babies are getting smarter, he said. It's just that we adults are learning more about what they know.

"Babies have always been pretty smart," he said.

There are plenty of videos on the Internet showcasing brainy babies doing amazing things, but according to some educators, such as the founder of the Institute for the Achievement of Human Potential, Glen Doman, babies can be taught to do "absolutely everything."

At the institute, which is a private school outside Philadelphia, parents learn to optimize their baby's natural brain power. Doman's daughter Janet is the director and she says babies are much smarter than we think.

At the institute, babies as young as a few weeks old are shown written words that correspond with objects like a banana. Janet Doman says this method can actually teach an infant to read.

"It's very clear to us that tiny babies can read in the first 12 months of life," she said. "They can differentiate single words just as easily as pictures. But the trick is you have to make the words big. They have to be big enough so the baby can see them."

Of course, newborns can't talk, so it's hard to tell what or if they're reading, but the mothers in the program say the kids are acting more alert, engaged and happier.

Behind every brilliant child on a video, there's a supportive adult. It's no secret that quality time with parents is a plus, but there are questions about whether it actually speeds up development.

"That rate of development is dependent on the maturation of the brain structures," Molofsky said. "And this occurs at a certain set rate. Let me give you a silly example: There's no amount of physical therapy that's gonna take a three month old and make him walk, unless you do it for a year."

Still, if babies can read in their first year, anything's possible.

"Maybe if we did a better job with our babies they'll do better when they're your age and my age," Jane Doman said. "Let's hope, so I want to be taken care of very well in my old age by these kids."