Oscar and Conductive Education

Oscar is a handsome 4yr old with spastic diplegia and cerebellum disorder. After being referred by medical stass, his Mom, Merryn, got Oscar into a Conductive Education program when he was 17 months old. She says it was the only available intensive therapy, but they have been so happy with it that he has been going ever since!

Questions Merryn answered about their experiences with Conductive Education:

Describe a typical session.

2.5 hours a day with intensive work on getting the child to sitting, crawling, walking. Mix of on plinth (table) work, sitting tasks on a box, walking with a ladder and/or parallell bars. Intensive mix of gross and fine motor skills work.

Please share some of the changes you saw in Oscar.

Oscar started out sitting, rolling and pivoting. After six months (2 years of age) he was crawling and walking with a trolley. At 3 years 3 months he took 28 unaided steps in his support boots - my proudest day. He is going from strength to strength and is now 4 years 3 months and I can walk unaided short distances or with a hand for longer.

What do you wish you had known when you were making the decision to try it out?

That someone had told us at 10 months when we were diagnosed with either CP or a stroke as the sooner we started the better we would be now. It is hard work but rewarding work as the intensiveness works.

Please share some of the details of your experiences.

This is the best thing that we could ever have done for Oscar. The Conductor's are experts in our CP kids and it is amazing what they know and what they can get the kids to do. There are medical professionals who say that this is no better than intensive physio and OT but here in New Zealand we do not qualify for that beyond 1 hour a fortnight. I would recommend that anyone with a CP kid gives this a try.

When asked whether she would recommend CE to other parents, Merryn responded with a  "Definitely!! It is the best thing we could ever do!" She gives it 5 out of 5 stars :)

Leave questions and comments on this post, or email Merryn for more information :)