If Tesco sold bottles of Conductive Education...

Firstly i apologise for the lack of blogs in the past few months - no good excuse really but i resolve to do better from now on!

a while ago a young adult with whom i work wrote a speech for a fundraising event and i absolutely loved his speech so feel that i'd like to share it with you.

From the horses mouth as it were....

"If Tesco sold bottles of Conductive Education I would be having them as part of my weekly shop as it provides a lifeline for anybody that has a physical or learning disability. Why? I will tell you why. My experiences of conductive education at Rainbow House has taught me and others like me, how to use our bodies and minds to overcome and conquer certain fears and challenges that have been previously huge barriers to us living our lives.

For example, when I started Conductive Education, my body felt useless, my confidence was at rock bottom and my mind was plauged with negative thoughts on how i would live my life independently. Conductive Education has helped me to control my body in times of stress and has boosted my life skills as well as my confidence in myself and in my abilities to overcome the negative thoughts created by how some people in this world see me. In my view, it is the most common sense, theraputic approach that i have come across.

I believe because of the hard work and training the Rainbow House team have done with me over the past three and a half years, my life has changed so much for the better as I am able to achieve so much more than I or others previously thought possible......without Rainbow House's support I would not have the confidence to live independently and of course would not be sitting here in front of you delivering this speech tonight...."

Thanks Jonathan!

Where is the line between doing it right and doing it yourself?

This i think is really a question for conductors as opposed to those interested in CE....
.... i have been thinking recently about when we (conductors) decide to help a child complete a task correctly and when we let them do it independently.

Of course we were always taught when training to teach the child or adult a straight and a correct position but we were also encouraged to let them find their own task solutions too. I think, when i first qualified i was guided a little by opinions given to me when physios observed my sessions and became quite aware of 'positioning' and i also worked with some conductors who had worked alongside physios who also had this awareness of positioning.

Now, i am thinking about one child in particular who has achieved a great deal from CE and i feel shows signs of becoming an orthofunctional adult. He has spastic quad CP with his left arm very effected. Now he is 8 and whilst we are able to help him manually to extend his knees and correct his foot position when standing he is increasingly confident and balanced on his feet when in his natural position (i.e. knees bent and turned inwards, feet turned outwards etc...). Now i wonder if we should be encouraging him to stand more independently in this position even though it is not a good position. Also, since his left hand is more affected, should we let him hold onto support with just his right hand in order that he could use a walking aid (e.g. a tripod stick) as, although he is increasingly able to use his left hand he is not currently able to hold and use a tripod stick with it. I sort of feel that i should encourage these skills as i want the child (the person) to become more independent and i think this may be a way to do that. That is not to say that i would ignore the positions from now on but also not to get too preoccupied with it so that it gets in the way of the child learning how to use his body.



I think i am quite aware that we are sometimes criticised by other professions such as physios for not looking at the position and just concentrating on letting the child/adult do something for themselves. This is not entirely true but not entirely untrue i suppose. And i am aware that although i have been working as a conductor for a few years now i have not seen children turn into adults and see the impact of these sorts of things whether positive or negative. Sometimes however, since i think i do look at positions a lot, i wonder if i have, without realising it, started thinking a bit like a physiotherapist?

So, what opinions do other conductors have on this? who has seen these children become adults and seen the effects of such decisions? any help, suggestions or opinions would be interesting to hear.