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About Conductive Education
The Program at Purpose
 As
with most conductive education programs, ours began as a small group of
families. There were four, and we had heard of conductive education and then
banded together to bring a conductor in for temporary visits. In our case, we
were saved a thousand chores when the Purpose Society agreed to serve as our
agency.
An accredited, non-profit agency with a 30-year history of
successful and innovative programs serving youth and families, Purpose was the
perfect help to a father who wanted to do something for which he didn’t have
time.
 Since
its inception in the fall of 2000, the Purpose program has offered just over 100
days of Conductive Education to 25-30 different families in the Lower Mainland,
Prince George, the Fraser Valley and the Okanagan. All fees have been paid out
of pocket, and evenly divided among the families served. We’ve gotten by in a
remarkably thrifty fashion, and we’ve seen our kids do things all the
professionals say cannot be done.
That said, the program is still the same in those
fundamental ways. The coordinator is still a volunteer parent. The conductors
are still hired temporarily, and the fees are still split evenly. With Purpose,
of course, donations for services can be receipted officially for tax reasons.
A Brief History of CE
 The
name of Conductive Education is linked to the work of
Dr András Petõ, who
was not only a medical doctor, but a writer, journalist, scientist - among
others - and who was interested in anything and everything that affected the
life of mankind.
His outlook on life was probably determined very early on
when he was still a child, a young man, whose mother dictated a very structured
life, while his father, with Parkinson's disease spent his life in a wheelchair.
He studied medicine at various universities, and then started practicing in a
war hospital, from which he moved on to a number of other hospitals in Austria.
In spite of his very rigorous medical studies, he never gave
up journalism. When he returned to Hungary in 1938 he started to work out the
system of Conductive Education. This was followed by long years of struggle and
a fight for the acceptance of his new system by the professional community.
Not until after World War II was he able to actually start
establishing the institute for Conductive Education. He had to prove to
professionals that against the traditional approach to motor disability due to
damage of the central nervous system, which denies the possibility of
rehabilitation, there is a way to educate the person to find the right
strategies in order to rehabilitate himself, if not alone then with the help of
Conductive Education.
 Past
discoveries and present experiences are there for anyone to build on, but not
everybody is able to apply these in order to create something new. And that was
the case with Conductive Education.
The first institute for Conductive Education was opened in
1950 in Budapest. And even though the theory of Conductive Education was
accepted, it was still not understood. Consequently Dr. Petõ still had to fight
every step of the way not only to prove the effectiveness of the system, but
also to establish a special school where the conductors could study, since their
unique profession required a college with a different structure, so finally in
1968 the Conductors' College was established.
After Dr. Petõ's death in 1967, his former student and later
associate Dr. Maria Hari took over. She was managing, directing and overseeing
everything in the institute with just as much dedication and love for the
children and devotion as Dr. Petõ did, carried on in his footsteps and developed
the system further. Her whole life revolved around the institute, she was the
one who opened up the doors to foreign children and students as well. And
finally there is a subject that is often evaded because of its sensitive nature,
but one which needs to be discussed, and that is physiotherapy - occupational
therapy versus Conductive Education.
 Due to the fact that for a number of reasons professionals
and school officials refused to discuss this subject, Conductive Education
couldn't be introduced in many places. It has to be stated that physiotherapy
and occupational therapy will not lose their importance and their place in the
process of rehabilitation because of the introduction of Conductive Education.
Not all children with motor disabilities are suited for Conductive Education for
a number of reasons. Children with Down's Syndrome and other syndromes cannot be
helped by Conductive Education. So a large number of children can only depend on
physiotherapy and occupational therapy for their future development.
Also, when Conductive Education reaches a certain point in
the rehabilitation process of a child, when there is nothing further for him/her
to benefit from Conductive Education, physiotherapy and occupational therapy can
take over and continue to maintain the achieved condition and provide a stand-by
source of help for the individual. As a matter of fact in many cases, along with
Conductive Education, for instance occupational therapy should be continued.
With the introduction of Conductive Education the significance of physiotherapy
and occupational therapy do not lessen - they only take a different route in the
process of rehabilitation.
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