Conductive Education

[lourobert]

What is it....who is it meant for...is it any good?? The Educational pyschologist mentioned it today and Im going to view our local centre but wanted to know a bit more first.

Its a physical therapy method developed in the Peto Institute in Hungary. What it does is teach a child to correct bad movements and posture through physical therapy and special equipment. It can help a child with moderate to mild CP but if its severe then no beans. We tried it with dd but as she can't move at all (she can't reach or move any limbs) it was useless.
Its also a way of life in that you do it all day every day - correcting movement, sitting in a particular way and if a child has a growth spurt you often have to start again. I know quite a few adults with CP who talk about it like it was torture and they hated every minute but who knows if it helped them with the movement they have.
But if its free, give it a try.

I looked up the Peto Institute in Hungary a couple of weeks ago. Seems like people literally give up their lives to take their DC there - they have sessions making up 40 hours per week. I am not sure what that means for family dynamics (like if one parent has to work, or if there is more than one child). They said it costs $USD 60 per day.

How that translates into a program that is sustainable and works for everybody else in the family I don't know.

I know very little else about Conductive Education. It is great that your therapists are even giving you options. I told DS2s physio today that we are going to Bobath, and got a mixed response - got the feeling that she may have had mixed feelings about it professionally, but she did say that she would go there if it was her child. Oh, and the first thing she said was you are going there even though you don't know DS2 has CP.....I think she is convinced DS2 doesn't have it, but hey, he only has one life so I guess we have to try everything.

Sorry can't say more about CE, hope someone comes on here who can tell you good, positive things about it!

We have a CE centre near us.

My friend takes her DD with CP there and thinks it's the bees knees. Seems to have done wonders for her, but it's VERY intensive and takes an awful lot of commitment.

Friend says it works by "forcing" the brain to develop new neural pathways to learn activities and movements. (hope I got that right)

dd went to school for parents at billingshurst(i went as well) when she was diddy.
we did lots of exercises. I felt it promoted independence.
Things like learning to roll (properly) the walking exercises were very good. I got a lot from it even though I hated it. (so did dd) it is a lot more intensive than phisio and some people see a lot of improvement with it.

Hi there, we go to the Rainbow centre in Fareham and it is a wonderful place. I was really worried about CE and particularly how strict/intense it would be. But it is not at all how I imagined - yes it is hard work for both me and dd but the results are amazing. In the last 6 weeks she has gone from being terrified of all unfamiliar adults and basically crying all the time to being a happy, confident little girl. She has gone from being able to sit up but not move at all to being able to crawl beautifully. The staff are incredible, they obviously adore children and shower them with love and affection and install in the confidence to achieve things no one else would ever have expected. The exercises become part of your daily life so are not difficult to fit in.

Here is a video about it:
uk.youtube.com/watch?v=xf0_AmUY2_4

Also here is a link to another thread where I explain a bit more about CE:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/1373/442694?stamp=071219045847

Jinglywoo - that's the one near us! I remember your previous post about CE.

I'm so glad to hear your DD is doing so well

Thanks Sidge - yes, I remember that, I was so worried about CE as I had heard how much work it would be but I'm so glad I made the effort.

Jinglewoo and Sidge, if this is qn option for us then we would go to the Fareham centre as I live in Portsmouth and actually work in Fareham. Ive emailed them to at least go and have a look.

Does your child have to have a dx of CP to be able to attend???

DS is 2 and has williams syndrome but also had infantile spasms at 5 months which may things worse. He can sit unaided an rolls everywhere, we are noticing improving strength in his legs all the time.

Thanks for your responses everyone

Hi, my DS1 has CP and we g to a 'School for Parents', which is where the child attends with a parent or carer for one session a weeks. Our centre is free and we donate or fundraise for it. The sessions are just over 2 hours long and while intensive it's really fun too. This one runs every week on a theme, this term it was animals and every week all the exercises were geared around an animal, eg rolling in the grass like a rabbit, crawling through tunnel like a dog. My DS is 2.8 and he loves it. I feel that it has helped him, but we do quite a lot of therapy and it's hard to tell how he would be without it of course! They give advice and little bits of homework and help towards statmenting, they also have an outreach service for nursery and schools.
You don't have to have a dx of CP to attend, there are allsorts at ours, DS, GDD, lots of undiagnosed, basically any movement disorder.
Hope this helps.

When we went they didn't even try to get her to roll. Something she cant do yet. Just said her CP was too severe and they needed movement to work with.
So for 3 years I have struggled and dd can finally roll onto one side and kick her legs.
Sp we're going to Brainwave.
DD's consultant is very dismissive of CE but I think a moderate/mild child would benefit if you put in the 8 hours a day it demands - and it can conflict with school. CE demdands that the child sits. Not a supportive special chair. They say that makes the brain/muscles lazy.
Some sort of middle road would be good.
But I wish someone would give me advice on how to get dd to roll fully and how we can develop some hand movement.

If the demands are so high, I wonder if the approach used by a family local to home could help?
basically DD was at brainwave (she was same dx as NMC's daughter but with far less intellectual ability evident), Mum died during the birth and Dad was a single parent. Brainwave and BIBIC were more intensive then (historically they have evolved significantly- this was when I was 17!), the way he dealt with that intensive issue was to use the local CAB, volunteer bureau and college childcare courses to recruit voluntary workers to come in to help for an hours worth of session.

Don't know how much it has helped longer term as I only did a year, but she could sip from a cup and seemed to be smiling a bit when I left.

Lourobert - I don't think the child has to have CP to go there; some friends have a DS with Angelmans and he went there for a while.

CE in his country is much more child friendly than in Hungary. It doesnt work for every child, but the ones it does work for get good results.

The down side of it ws always that to go to Hungary often meant families splitting up, which was why there was such a push to have centres over here.

Also from families I knew who went out there, they tended to be a bit secretive about it, not letting parents in on sessions, where here there is much more openness, and in school for parents the parent works with the child.

I know some physios dont like it as they think it contradicts what they are doiung. I havent had much to do with CE for years as the only school for parents near here closed through lack of interest from families!

But when I worked in London, we worked quite closely with a couple of centres doing CE, and I did a weeks course there, which i found really good.

I have only just seen this post, and have to go to work in a minute.

But, In my opinion Con Ed is brill.

At level or what skills do they need to have in order for this to be successful. My portage worker doest think my son is at the right level?

well when dd went she was only about 2 and had limited control on everything. no hand eye cordination. we went and had a look and a interview. and started. give it a try. you don't have to sign up for a term or anything. if you don't like it you just leave.

The theory behind CE originally was that by talking through a task while doing it, the motor pattern was reinforced. But a lot of children without speech still benefit from it.

I think it can be adapted for most abilities, although children with a reasonable cognitive level seem to get the most out of it.

Id go and have a look, and see how you feel about it.

My DD2 who has mild/moderate CP is about to start CE, I think at the same place Hairy Maclary goes to.

We observed a session before she was assessed, and the children in that session were more severely disabled than her, but obviously perfectly eligible for CE. They were between approx 12 and 24 months, and many were unable to sit, and none appeared able to roll or move independently.

There were lots of songs and sensory stimulation, eg an extreme lava lamp thingy, mirrors with lots of lights, fine water spray (during a weather song), a fan (same song! wind!), lots of textures - astroturfy stuff, fake fur etc., it was FAB.

Lourobert, I'm convinced your DS would benefit and be eligible to participate if you have a centre within travelling ditance.

Coco... is it is SW London? If so they are fab. Lourobert - I have a friend who's son has Down syndrome and CP and when he started there at 20 months or so he have very little head control, no sitting and I don't think he was rolling. They were happy to accept him. If you have a CE centre or School for parents close to you it would be worth asking - or going to see for yourself.

My ds has global developmental delay as well as mild cp, it worked a treat for him. I think that as with anything, with some stuff your kids fly and with others they don't.

That's right, SW London. It's going to be a bit of a nightmare journey for us, round the south circular, but people rave about CE so much that I'm convinced it's got to be worth giving it a try.

Hairy, your advice in a post a while back inspired me to contact them. I probably had a slightly different name then, so you may not remember me!

Is the SW London one "Small Steps"? The physio that DS2 goes to, who is in SW London herself, has brochures for it, and I picked one up sometime and it looked quite interesting. Don't know anything about it though.

How does CE fit in with something like Bobath?

mm22bys, yes it is Small Steps.

We've told our regular physio that dd2 will be doing CE from Jan, and she is fine with it. She says that NHS physio uses a mixture of techniques, and that Bobath and CE are not mutually exclusive. She seems interested more than anything, and is planning to attend one of our sessions.

However, I have heard that in some NHS trusts physio input is sometimes reduced if a child is attending CE. I've also heard of parents doing CE in secret as their NHS physio disapproves. It depends where you are... We're in Southwark.