World Congress 2010

It was great to find out via Andrew's blog that the VII World Congress in 2010 is now in the serious planning stage with its website under construction. Two years seems a long way away but it will soon be here. No doubt a call for papers will follow in the New Year.

The first six congresses have resulted in a mixed bag of materials including programmes, a magazine, books of abstracts and some of the presentations included in issues of Conductive Education Occasional Papers (these incidentally appear to have ceased publication), which are held by the library here. But no full proceedings. The last congress in 2007 did have a website but only produced a brief report and evaluation.

I hope that SAHK will put this on the list of things to do and produce proceedings as there are bound to be some people who don't/can't go to the congress but will still be interested in what the presenters have to say. This international congress offers an opportunity for disseminating what is going on in Conductive Education all over the world and reporting what conductors are actually doing. Publishing the proceedings would also add to the literature as I have mentioned before in a previous blog.

I don't think I can over emphasise that there is a great need for people to write things down in detail for others to read, share and learn from as happens in other professions , so please forgive me if you think I am repeating myself.

http://www.ce-congress2010.com/

http://www.ce-congress2007.com/v1/main.html?lang=en

http://ce-library.blogspot.com/2008/08/please-write-as-well-as-speak_22.html

Conductive Education Classics: no.1.

This is the first item to be highlighted in the way I mentioned yesterday. I would like to stress there is no particular reason for this choice and the same will go for future selections, it will be serendipity. Perhaps I will do a poll after a reasonable number to see what is known, what is considered 'a good read' or 'useful'. We may end up with a top ten! Suggestions for inclusion will be very welcome.

Dina was published jointly by the Foundation for Conductive Education and Alabanda Verlag in 1991, the only account of its kind, and since then it has enjoyed modest sales.
I have taken the synopsis on the back of the book as the best explanation of its contents.
This book is an argument for trusting the personal responsibility and initiative of parents of babies and young children with cerebral palsy.
Frau Seiffer, the mother of Dina, who is twenty months old and severely brain damaged, takes her life and the life of her little daughter into her own hands. With the help of Conductive Education she succeeds in discovering her own abilities, submerged and unrecognised by specialists, and uses them to set her child’s personality development in motion and significantly reduce the symptoms of her child’s cerebral palsy.
Conductive Education means practising a way of living based upon intense co-operation between the mother (or a person to whom the child relates very closely) and the child, co-operation which gives the child’s motivation a central role.
From the correspondence between Frau Seiffer and Frau Gross, who also has a little daughter with cerebral palsy, and the authors, the reader comes to understand not only how the children’s personalities develop but also how their mothers’ insight into the unfamiliar Conductive Educational way of thinking grows.
The ‘Booklet for Mothers’ is directed towards mothers of infants and young children with cerebral palsy and intended as a practical manual for living.
DINA appeals to parents and specialists alike. It also has something to offer the academic and the researcher. One chapter deals with the theoretical basis of Conductive Education. The book gives insight into the way of thinking of the Pető System and also shows how it can be used in everyday life. With this system success can be achieved in a way which is thought impossible in the world of therapy, determined and fragmented as it is by different specialists.
Publisher: Foundation for Conductive Education and Alabanda-Verlag
Date: 1991
ISBN: 0 9515507 7 2
Price: £11.95
This available to buy from me for £11.95 plus postage and packing - email me for details gill@nice.ac.uk - or via Amazon. Photocopies are not possible.

Highlighting Conductive Education material

Whenever a new Conductive Education publication appears I always check the references to see if there is anything I don't have in the library, which I am pleased to say is rarely the case. Frequently these references are 'old', that is pre 2000, and some even from the late 1980s and early 1990s. Later publications are either unknown or possibly just ignored. Why is this? Journal databases (which cannot and do not include every journal title published) such as Medline, are not the only source of information for items in Conductive Education, e.g. we have the Internet, the most accessible, which offers all sorts of information about journals, books etc., and some academic libraries do have Conductive Education books and papers in their collections. Perhaps a factor is the fact that lot of Conductive Education material is unpublished or produced in small quantities limiting their circulation, so the usual sources may not be enough.

The library here has a wealth of information just waiting to be read, evaluated and discussed so I thought that if I profile items regularly it might spread knowledge of their existence, content and possible use.

I hope to select an item in the library - book, article, conference paper, unpublished document - and profile it on this blog by giving some basic bibliographic details and a little precis of its contents. Included will be details for purchase (if thats possible) or the procedure and cost for photocopying.

Watch this space.

Blogging: it's a start!

I've just read the comment on Andrew's blog by Becky about her reasons for starting a blog, stopping and starting again. For her it rested on the question whether someone, anyone would want to read it rather than on the writing itself. Could it be interesting to others? This I imagine is quite a common feeling as going public can leave you open to all sorts of things, some good and some not so good. It certainly was a factor in my decision to start this blog and Andrew convinced me to give it a go. Despite the paucity of comments, I don't regret it - yet!

Perhaps this feeling of not producing something 'readable' or 'interesting' could be the reason why the literature of CE is not more extensive. Why should you write what everyone knows? I'm not doing anything new or amazing so there is no need for me to write it down, is there? These are probably some of the words that flit through a lot of people's minds. Blogs are a good way of getting thoughts, ideas, events and developments down in an informal way, which hopefully may lead on to more formal reporting, discussion and analysis and encourage others to join in with comments or even start their own blog.

As I am always saying - it would be a start!

Blogs, blogs everywhere and not a minute to read them

Susie has posted an item about blogging, the proliferation of blogs and having the time to read them.This partially echoed a conversation I had with Andrew Sutton about comments on blogs and how easy it is to miss them, probably due to reading quickly and their not being displayed prominently.Maybe down to the fact that bloggers usually are computer buffs and are looking for such facilities. This is a shame as frequently the comments are very interesting and can lead to further discussion as happened with Andrew's item about mentoring.

We bloggers like to have comments too, as it shows that people are reading our postings and would like to talk to us. Laszlo was getting disheartened because of this last week.

So, please do comment and contribute to sharing knowledge, opinions, information etc. Could we say that this in itself may be a form of mentoring and encouragement ? Comments please!

Susie's posting

http://konduktorin.blogspot.com/2008/11/just-quiet-evening-for-conductor.html

Laszlo's posting

http://szogeczki.blogspot.com/2008/11/thinking-strange.html

Educação Condutiva em Santa Catarina: Avaliação de um Projeto. A report from Brazil

The publication of a research report on Conductive Education in Brazil was mentioned on Andrew's blog, including references and contact details, a couple of days ago. I contacted Célia Hoefelmann who has responded very quickly indeed, and a copy of the report was in my email this morning. I will add it to the library's collection of papers/reports on research into Conductive Education in all its applications.

Thank you, Andrew, for the details, its great to know that someone else is out there keeping an eye on publications etc, as it is not easy to keep track of everything published in Conductive Education, in all languages. All such information is much appreciated and helps me to continue adding to the collection of material here in Birmingham.

Cerebral Palsy Conference, 2009

Sydney, Australia is the chosen venue for the 3rd International Cerebral Palsy conference, 18-21 February 2009. The organising committee states :

The aim of this conference is to facilitate collaboration between internationally renowned researchers across all disciplines to help find the answers to cerebral palsy. The conference will have a theme of 'Across the Life-span'

More details can be found at http://www.cp2009.com.au/ including a provisional programme which includes presentations by such familiar names as Peter Rosenbaum, Robert Palisano, Dinah Reddihough and Johanna Darrah. No conductors as far as I could see.

Early bird registration is required before 18 December 2008.

What do we know about András Pető?

Those of you who are following Andrew's and Susie's blogs, will have realised that knowledge of András Pető the man is very skimpy indeed with a lot based on hearsay and comments of those who actually knew him. He gave very little away and much of the personal information we have is reminiscences, often contradictory, and not factual evidence.

I have compiled a list of material in held in the National Library which includes unpublished material, newspaper articles, contributions to books and also some items written by the man himself. These are in a variety of languages - English, Hungarian, German, Swedish and Norwegian. A student conductor in the late 1980s did start to investigate his life and work but never finished (Szorenyi, 1990; 1994), Judit Forrai published a collection of reminiscences (1999), and Mária Hári (who spoke at his funeral) produced several accounts of his life and establishment of what became the Pető Institute.

As you will see very little published material by Pető has been traced so far, but further discoveries may be made in the future. In the 1920s and 1930s he published under a variety of pseudonyms, some of which are included in the list below.

I am sure this is not everything and would welcome any information about other pieces, and especially copies of such items, that would make useful additions to my collection.

Pető the man

Ákos, K. and Ákos, M.(1997) The enigmatic Dr. Pető. The Conductor, 6(3-4),
pp.49-55.

Anon (1993) In memoriam Pető. In International Pető Institute, Pető András (1893-1993), Budapest: International Pető Institute, pp.30-37.

Anon (2000) Pető an König. Fortschritt, nos.2-3, p10.

Anon (2006) András Pető. [online] Wikipedia Fooundation. Accessed 20 December 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A1s_Pet%C5%91

Bachmann, W. and others (1977) András Pető. In Bachmann, W., and others, Biographies of Hungarian special educators. Rheinstetten: Schindele, pp.94-95.

Balogh, M. and Ocsenás, T. (2001) Hungarians of the century: András Pető. In International Pető Institute, Abstracts of the 4th World Congress on Conductive Education. Budapest: International Pető Institute, p13.

Billington, I. (2003) András Pető. In Billington, I., Petö-metoden – en tverrfaglig utfordring. Oslo: N.W.Damm & Søn, pp.26-28.

Bíró, K. (1993) Remembering András Pető. In International Pető Institute, Pető András (1893-1993). Budapest: International Pető Institute, pp.16-23.

Dévai, J. (1997) The first years with András Pető. Unpublished paper.

Dezséry, L. (1962) About a wonderful school. Magyar Hétköznapok, 29 May.

Fekete, G. (1970) Professor Pető’s legacy. Népszabadság, 31 October, p.6.

Forrai, J. (1999) Memoirs of the beginnings of conductive pedagogy and András Pető. Budapest: Új Aranyhíd and Foundation for Conductive Education.

Forster, V. (1997) A view from the past. The Conductor, 6(3-4), pp.43-48.

György, I. (1967) The man to whom there were no hopeless cases. Népszabadság, 13 September, p.11.

Halász, Z. (1965) Home thoughts from across the Channel. [Brief mention of Pető, pp.112-113.] New Hungarian Quarterly pp.100-113.

Hári, M. (1996) In memory of Pető. Pető Magazine, Summer, pp.5-8.

Hári, M. (1997) A konduktív pedagógia története. Budapest: MPANNI.

Hári, M. (1999) Die Geschichte der konduktiven Pädagogik. Budapest: International Pető Institute.

Hári, M. (2001) The history of Conductive Education. Conductive Education Occasional Papers, supplement 2. Budapest: International Pető Institute.

Hári, M., and others (1991) The origins of Conductive Education. In Hári, M., and others, A konduktív pedagógiai rendszer, Budapest: International Pető Institute,pp.9-20 and 212-213.

Harris, C. (1989) Pető - friend of the CP child. Therapy Weekly, 15 June, p.6.

Horváth, J. (1997) András Pető; a brief biographical sketch. In Taylor, M. and Horváth, J., ed., Conductive Education occasional papers, no.1. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham Books, pp.1-6.

International Pető Institute (1999) Who was András Pető? http://www.peto.hu/Tortenet/peto.htm (Accessed 25 October 1999)

International Pető Institute (1993) Pető András (1893-1993). Budapest: International Pető Institute.

Kapronczay, K. (1993) Remembering András Pető. In International Pető Institute, Pető András (1893-1993), Budapest: International Pető Institute, pp.24-29.

Kenyeres, A., ed. (1985) András Pető. In Kenyeres, A., ed. Magyar Életrajzi Lexikon. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, pp.613-614.

Kerényi, P. (1989) Pető, the man. Hungarian Observer, 3 (2), p5.

Lehnhardt, R. (1965) Lebenshilfe für Bewegungsversehrte. Schwabische Zeitung, p? [English translation in The Conductor, 4(4), 1992, p65.]

Liljeroth, I. (2004) Pető’s liv fram till starten av KP. In Liljeroth, I. Konduktiv pedagogik. Goteberg: Bräcke Diakoni, pp.19-22.

Liphart, A. (1993) From András Pető to the Pető Institute. Unpublished paper. [English summary by R. Szörenyi of a programme broadcast by Izülőföldünk, 10 September]

Medveczky, E. (2006) Dr András Pető. In Medveczky, E. Conductive Education as an educational method of neurorehabilitation. Budapest: International Pető Institute, pp.11-13.

Mallet, S. (2008) Angels and souls, to me its one and the same. Nurnberg: Mallett.[online]http://konduktorin.blogspot.com/2008/11/angels-and-souls-to-me-its-one-and-same.html

Nádas, P. (1967) A man dies. Pest Megyei Hírlap, p?

NATIONAL LIBRARY OF CONDUCTIVE EDUCATION (2000) András Pető 1893-1967; a selection of items from periodicals and the Hungarian press. Unpublished collection.

Papp, C. The spirit, rehabilitation and character formation. Magyarország, 1 October, p.24.

Pintér, G. (2003) András Pető and Jacob Levi Moreno. In Balogh, E. and Kozma, I., ed. Conductive Education Occasional Papers no.10. Budapest: International Pető Institute, pp.1-12.

Popper, P. (2001) Buddha Budapesten. In Popper, P. Holdidő. Budapest: Saxum, pp.51-70.

Ruffy, P. (1967) Professor Dr András Pető. Magyar Nemzet, 15 August, p?

Ruffy, P. (1974) Nagyszerü mérges ember. In Ruffy, P. Úttalan utakon. Budapest: Szépirodalmi Könyvkiadó, pp.97-102.

Ruffy, P. (1987) An angry man with the face of Buddha; András Pető. Magyar Nemzet, 4 July, pp.8-9.

Sarkány, J. (1994) Memories of Dr András Pető. The Conductor, 5(3-4), pp.75-76.

Sutton, A. (2000) The mysterious András Pető; report on the literary evening.
Unpublished paper.

Sutton, A. (2008) Dialogue with Judit 1. Birmingham: Sutton. [online] http://andrew-sutton.blogspot.com/2008/11/dialogue-with-judit-i.html

Sutton, A. (2008) Dialogue with Judit 2. Birmingham: Sutton. [online] http://andrew-sutton.blogspot.com/2008/11/dialogue-with-judit-ii.html

Szörenyi, R. (1990) A portrait sketch of András Pető, founder of Conductive Education. Unpublished paper.

Szörenyi, R. (1994) Bibliography of Pető’s works1921-1935 with chronology of his life 1893-1922. Unpublished paper.

Török, S. (1979) Table talk with Pető. In Török, S. Egy kis kertet szerettem volna. Budapest: Magveto Kiadó, pp.245-259.

Vekerdy, T. The charisma of a maverick healer. New Hungarian Quarterly, 34 (Spring), pp.115-120.

Wikipedia (2008) Pető András. San Francisco: Wikimedia Foundation. [online] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andras_Peto

Pető’s Works


Bärnklau, O. (1965) [pseudonym] Unfug der Krankheit. Hanau: Verlag Karl Schustek.

Bärnklau, O. (1965) [pseudonym] Gibt es unheil bare Krankheiten? Nein! Lindau-Bodensee:Rudolph’s Verlagsbuchandlung.

Jernqvist, L., ed. (2005) Pető’s letters to Ester Cotton 1965-1966. Cumbernaud: Jernqvist.

Pető, A. (1921-1935) Papers written under various pseudonyms. Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift, [In German]

Pető, A. (1930-1931) Papers written under various pseudonyms. Biologische Heilkunst, 11, 12. [In German]

Pető, A. (1952) Szoviet mozgásterápia módszerek.[ Paper read at Hungarian Special Education and Training conference, December 1952.] Unpublished paper.

Pető, A. (1955) Curriculum vitae. Unpublished paper.

Pető, A. (1956) Konduktív mozgásterápia mint gyógypedagógia. [Conductive movement therapy as special education] Gyógypedagógia, 1, pp.15-21. [Annotated and abridged version by A. Sutton in The Conductor, 5 (2), 1993, pp.37-39.]

Pető, A. (1959) Letter to Dr. König. [Briefly describes the practice of Conductive Education]. Unpublished paper.

Pető, A. (1962) Bevezető a konduktiv mozgáspedagógiába. Budapest: Tankönyvkiadó.

Pető, A. (1965) Notes on organic neurocare. Unpublished paper.

Pető, A. (1965) Pető’s proverbs. Compiled by E. Cotton. Unpublished paper.

Pető, A. (1965) Pető’s proverbs or truth in a nutshell. Compiled by J. House 1969. Unpublished paper. [A version of those by E. Cotton]

Changes

As you can see, I have changed the format of this site which I think gives it a better structure and clearer, distinct layout. All the additions made over the past few months to the blog in its previous format seemed to give it a very 'busy' feel that was somewhat disorganised. Please let me know what you think.

Practical information

Special libraries in the main tend to hold academic material suited to those who are studying or professionally interested in a subject and because of this more practical information can get missed or overlooked. This library aims to include information at all levels and today I happened to be adding the latest issues of a number of journals/magazines to the library which are of a more practical nature, and are produced by charities/organisations in the UK set up to help those with Parkinson's disease, stroke and multiple sclerosis. Titles of such magazines include:

The Parkinson (Parkinson's Disease Society)

MS Matters (Multiple Sclerosis Society)

New Pathways (Multiple Sclerosis Resource Centre)

Stroke News (Stroke Association)

Different Strokes (Different Strokes)

These offer personal accounts of conditions, tips for managing, coping, alternative therapies, drug information, advice for carers, latest government statements, information about the latest research projects. Very useful for those with such neurological conditions and their carers. These magazines can be obtained from their publishers free or for a small annual subscription - more information is available on their websites.

The Parkinson's Disease Society

www.parkinsons.org.uk

Multiple Sclerosis Society

www.mssociety.org.uk

The Multiple Sclerosis Resource Centre

www.msrc.co.uk

Stroke Association

www.stroke.org.uk

Different Strokes

http://www.differentstrokes.co.uk/

Such practical information related to cerebral palsy is not so easy to find. Cerebra Bulletin, published by the charity Cerebra, www.cerebra.org.uk set up to help children with brain related conditions, does includes cerebral palsy, but nothing aimed exclusively at those with cerebral palsy of all ages is published in the UK as far as I'm aware, and if anyone knows otherwise please tell me. In the United States, Cerebral Palsy Magazine is produced, concerned mainly with children and more information is available on the internet at

http://www.cerebralpalsymagazine.com/

History of Conductive Education

On looking at the items I have in the library that contribute to the history of Conductive Education I realised that the use of the word history can be a little arbitrary to say the least. What constitutes history? When does an item become an historical account/critique? What do we mean by history? When does something/an event become history? Is yesterday history? Barack Obama made history yesterday we are told.

Not easy questions to answer, at least for me. According to Collins English Dictionary, history is :

a record or account often chronological in approach of past events, developments

So I have put together a list of items that present a historical overview of Conductive Education by those looking back to the beginnings, either relating their experiences or presenting the facts of the events as they have been able to discover them, and are about the development of Conductive Education itself rather than the man. András Pető himself is shrouded in mystery as he did not reveal much at all about himself, but there is still a reasonable amount of material. He deserves a separate list which will follow at a later date.

Conductive Education; an historical overview

Ákos, K. and Ákos, M.(1997) The enigmatic Dr Pető. The Conductor, 6(3-4), pp.49-55.

Anon (1996) A history of the International Pető Institute. The Pető Magazine, Summer, p10.

Dévai, J. (1997) The first years with András Pető; the birth of Conductive Education. Unpublished paper.

Forrai, J. (1999) Memoirs of the beginnings of conductive pedagogy and András Pető. Budapest: Új Aranyhíd and Birmingham: Foundation for Conductive Education.

Forster, V. (1997) A view from the past. The Conductor, 6(3-4), pp.43-48.

Hári, M. (1970) The short story of conductive education. Unpublished paper.

Hári, M. (1990) The history of Conductive Education and the principles of the Pető system. In International Pető Association, First World Congress; conference proceedings. Budapest: International Pető Institute, pp.3-5.

Hári, M. (1997) A konduktív pedagógia története. Budapest: Mpanni.

Hári, M. (1997) Die Geschichte der Konduktiven Pädagogik.Budapest: International Pető Institute.

Hári, M. (1999) The history of conductive pedagogy. Budapest: International Pető Institute.

Hári, M., and others (1991) A konduktív pedagógia eredete. In Hári, M., and others, A konduktív pedagógiai rendszer hatékony működésének alapelvei és gyakorlata. Budapest: Nemzetközi Pető Intézet.

Kilborn, E. (2007) The Hungarian origins of Conductive Education: an educational system for children with neurological disorders (1945-2001). Unpublished paper.

Sutton, A. (1986) The social-historical context. In Cottam, P. and Sutton, A., ed., Conductive Education; a system for overcoming motor disorder. London: Croom Helm, pp.3-28.

Sutton, A. (2004) Handling ladies. Unpublished paper.

Sutton, A. (2006) Notes towards a history of Conductive Education. Unpublished paper.

Sutton, A. (2006) Conductive pedagogy yesterday, today, tomorrow. Unpublished paper.

Anything on history of rehablilitation?

A request today for information on the history of rehabilitation from Laszlo led to finding very few useful references. Looking at Amazon and Blackwells online bookshops, I found a multitude of books written on rehabilitation for animals, those with drug addiction of all types and criminals. Very little on the physical rehabilitation for those with a disability and then it appears to have been considered by each separate type of therapy rather looking at the whole picture, probably because it is such a large subject. Even so, I have not been able to track down many references and those below are for books held in this library. More could probably be found by doing a search of journal databases, such as Medline, CINAHL but I do not have full access to these. After a search on the internet, I have found similar results, that is history of a specific type of rehabilitation or for a specific condition. It is possible to find some general information if you click on the URLs.

This led me to thinking about the history of Conductive Education and the fact that there is very little available on the history of its development and Peto himself, and what there is can be contradictory. I compiled a list of items a few years ago but will now revise it and blog it shortly.

See list below for books and internet references on rehabilitation. If anyone can recommend any titles, papers etc, please let me know.

Books/Journals

Partridge, C. (1996) Physiotherapy approaches to the treatment of neurological conditions - an historical perspective. In Edwards,S.(1996) Neurological physiotherapy. New York: Churchill Livingstone, pp.3-14.

Physiotherapy, vol. 80, no.A, 1994. Special issue on development of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy.

McGlown, D.(1990) The major schools of rehabilitation: historical perspectives and a critical appraisal In McGlown, D., Developmental reflexive rehabilitation. London: Taylor and Francis, pp. 14-46.

Turner, A. (2002) History and philosophy of occupational therapy. In Turner, A., and others ed., Occupational therapy and physical dysfunction. Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone, pp.3-24.

Internet

http://www.rehab.utoronto.ca/News/History%20of%20Rehabilitation.htm

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=AWxL26QinwYC&pg=PA3&lpg=PA3&dq=history+%22rehabilitation%22&source=web&ots=ZSJaU0_Hk3&sig=MWARV8I-MC9iecrPR10YdIeuOQ0&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=10&ct=result#PPA7,M1

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=RUnPpis7bO8C&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=history+%22rehabilitation%22&source=web&ots=z0okIQII0_&sig=QBQbTR_DLI2D2yxQs2ebXulUwUQ&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result#PPA2,M1

New items in the Library

In the past I have put lists of new additions to the library on the library page of the Foundation for Conductive Education's website but I will be posting regular updates on this blog too. This list is a small selection of the 100 items added over the past twelve months in a number of different formats, papers, articles, DVD, items on the internet.

Only the basic details of each is given and an abstract/further information re the content is not included.If anyone is interested in following up on any of the references please let me know.

BAKER, W. and SUTTON, A. (2008) Parent-child interaction as focus for early intervention: experience from early-age Conductive Education. Interconnections Quarterly Journal, 1(2), pp.14-22.

BALOGH, M. (2007) Mária Hári and her Conductive Education. Budapest: International Petó Institute.

BRITTLE, N., and others (2008) Short term effects on mobility, activities of daily living and health related quality of life of a Conductive Education programme for adults with multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease and stroke. Clinical Rehabilitation, 22(4), pp.329-337.

BROWN, M. and PAVEL, A. (2007) The impact of Conductive Education on quality of life for people with acquired neurological conditions. Birmingham: Foundation for Conductive Education.

CLIFTON, E. (2007) I wouldn’t be where I am today. Presentation made to Tsad Kadima cerebral palsy conference, December 2007. Unpublished paper.

DALMON, M. (2007) Conductive Education has given me my very own ‘pocketful of tricks’. Unpublished paper.

FELLNER, G. (2006) Conductive Education.[online] Sheffield: Paces. http://paces-school.org.uk/CONDUCTIVE%20EDUCATION.pdf

GONCZY, K. (2007) Conductive Education in practice; the role of the conductor. Unpublished paper.

JENKINS, H. (2006) Evaluation of an early intervention strategy based on the principles of Conductive Education to assist students with mobility disorders. Unpublished report.

KILBORN, E. (2007) The Hungarian origins of Conductive Education: an educational system for children with neurological disorders (1945-2001) Unpublished paper.

MIKULA-TÓTH, Á (2007) Conductive Education for adults with cerebral palsy. DVD. Unpublished presentation.

MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS SOCIETY (2007) Conductive Education project. London: Multiple Sclerosis Society.

ROTH, J. (2004) Comparison of two teaching methods: Reggio Emilia and Conductive Education. [online] Virginia Beach: Roth. http://www.conductiveedconsulting.com/freearticles/teachingcomparison.html

SUTTON, A. (2007) CE-related research: a memorandum to the Norsk Forum for Konduktiv Pedagogik. 2nd version. Unpublished paper

Conductive Education and spina bifida

Twenty years ago there was a spina bifida group at the Peto Institute and one of the first British children to go there was a little girl with the condition (Tippet, 1988, Ash, 1990). Since then the prevalence of spina bifida has been greatly reduced and children are placed in groups with athetoid children.

Consequently, some newly qualified conductors have not had training or experience in working with this condition. A request for help on the Conductive Community Discussion Forum made me look at what I have in the library. Not very much at all.

Here is a list which could be of some use and if anybody would like photocopies please get in touch with me. If you have anything else you are willing to let me have, please let me know.

Ash, A. and Ash, P. (1990) Our beautiful daughter has spina bifida. The Conductor, 2(4), pp.86-87.
Sutton, A. (1984) A note on the spina bifida group at the Institute for the Motor Disabled. Unpublished paper.
Sutton, A. (1987) Conductive Education and spina bifida. Ability, no.9,
pp.11-12.
Sutton, A. (1988) Conductive Education and spina bifida. Part II. Ability, no.10, pp.22-24.
Sutton, A. (1988) Conductive Education. Part III. Unanswered questions. Ability, no.11, p6.
Tippet, J. (1988) First experiences: Sophie Tippet. The Conductor, no.3,
pp.48-49.
Tippet, J. (1991) Life after Peto. The Conductor, 3(4), p84.
Whelan, K. (1986) Observation of the spina bifida group at the Peto Institute 16-18 June 1986. Unpublished paper.

Discussion forum gets going

The new Conductive Community Discussion Forum has started to get going and has had over 160 visitors since it went live on 13 October. Quite a few people have registered as users so all we need now is lots of topics up there to be discussed. To try and raise awareness of the forum a link has now been put from the Foundation for Conductive Education website for any people who visit the website. The Foundation did have its own forum in the past but this was withdrawn by the hosting service provider and it was felt a link to Elliot Clifton's forum would do the job just as well.

So, log into www.conductive-community.com and post, 'listen' and learn! The library holds print outs of threads from the old forum on topics of interest, such as sage baths, piedro boots, AAC in Conductive Education , and what does CE really do for cp. I will look forward to adding more.

Conductive Education and multiple sclerosis

Most people know that conductors work with children with cerebral palsy but less are aware of CE's benefits for adults with neurological conditions such as Parkinson's disease, stroke, head injury and multiple sclerosis. Last year the MS Society in collaboration with Neurosupport in Liverpool ran a pilot project for people with MS with the help of Laszlo Szogeczki, conductor and I have discovered that information about this has now been posted on the MS Society website. Thank you, Andrew.

http://www.mssociety.org.uk/for_professionals/resources/conductive_ed.html

This includes a short video of the participants and a downloadable booklet on the project. Both of these are also available in the National Library of Conductive Education

Let's hope this raises the profile of CE with adults and leads to more projects.

Some of you may also be aware of Laszlo's blog recently started at

http://www.szogeczki.blogspot.com/)

Wii and Conductive Education

Yesterday a conductor referred me to a piece on the internet, put up in May 2008, about conductors at the Peto Institute using Wii to motivate and stimulate adolescents with cerebral palsy. Thank you, Kati.

Using the Wii once a week has improved muscle tone, balance and standing and the short film shows how much enjoyment and satisfaction is achieved along the way. Conductive Education showing how adaptable it can be without losing any of its core principles.

If you log on to

http://index.hu/tech/hardver/szrkf080411/

You will be able to find out more about this development.

It is in Hungarian but use of the translator should help those who need it and just watching the film as I did, by clicking on the picture of the boy holding the wii controls, tells it all.

TV news item

It is great that A Child Can Do All Things, Dallas has finally had their centre on the news and I will look forward to watching it. Getting CE centre stage is very difficult, so well done, Jacolyn Lieck!

Over the years I have collected such items in the library as they add to the historical record of events in CE worldwide, so if anyone has a copy they could let me have, that would be terrific.

We seek it here, we seek it there

Trying to find information on the internet can be very frustrating , particularly when looking for Conductive Education, as there are so many choices of where to search, but there is not just Google out there. An item on the BBC News website today about the re-vamp of Ask to try and raise their hit rate

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7646579.stm

highlights the difficulties that other search engines have in competing with Google, which has very good search features and is almost everyone's first choice now. But there are others, and a considerable number worth considering when searching the world wide web.

Before starting remember:

1. Every search you make produces a small snapshot of what is available at that particular time. Searching again later could well produce different results.

2.Search engines can be temperamental and illogical and results depend on the search engine, country version and time of day.

3. Some things are hard to find because they are poorly ranked or even ignored by some search engines.

4. Sometimes pages are changed or even deleted and a way of finding them is using the Wayback Machine at http://web.archive.org/

5. Sometimes it is possible to find items by using BananaSLUG, a long tail search engine, which will combine your term with random words from a category of your choice at http://bananaslug.com/ I've found some interesting material on CE using this that I didn't come across elsewhere.

6. Perhaps most important of all, remember anyone can put any thing up on the internet, so it is up to you to exercise quality control.

So don't stick to Google, use Yahoo, Exalead, Bananaslug, Lycos, Hotbot, AltaVista, Allthe web, Ask etc and help keep these engines alive. On trying a European engine, Acoona, this week I discovered that it was no longer operational 'due to an overwhelmingly competitive search market'. Shame, as I had found this one particularly useful for tracking CE news.

The Bobaths and Conductive Education

The Bobaths' and their system seems to be back in the forefront of things at the moment - well, in 2 blog postings over the past few weeks. Andrew Sutton mentioned meeting an old colleague who told him about Berta Bobath trying to stop CE being known outside Hungary

http://andrew-sutton.blogspot.com/2008/09/fantasy-and-eaality.html

and yesterday Susie Mallet posted a piece about Bobath and CE.

http://konduktorin.blogspot.com/2008/10/dr-karel-and-mrs-berta-bobath.html

If anyone is interested in knowing more about the Bobaths, the Bobaths and CE I have in the library a number of items. These include:

the article by Kate Hedges and the Bobaths' reports of their three day visit to the Peto Institute in September 1966.

and

Balogh, E. and Hari, M. (1997) Berta Bobath in Budapest. Conductive Education Occasional Papers, no.3, pp. 19-26. This includes copies of letters sent to Peto by Berta Bobath.

Other papers attempt a comparative analysis of CE and Bobath and anyone interested in following up on this could look at

Campbell, P. and Finn, D. (1991) Programming to influence acquisition of motor abilities in infants and young children. Pediatric Physical Therapy, 3(4), pp.200-205.

Tatlow, A. (1987) Conductive Education and the Bobath concept: an evaluation. Paper read at a symposium held on 8 March 1987 by Duchess of Kent's Childrens Hospital at Sandy Bay [Hong Kong]

Berta and Karel Bobath published a number of papers/accounts of their work including one , entitled The neurodevelopmental treatment, which was published in the classic text

Scrutton, D. ed. (1984) Management of the motor disorders of children with cerebral palsy. London: Spastics International Publications.

Incidentally this book also includes a chapter on Conductive Education written by Maria Hari with Thomas Tillemans.