Conductive Education (CE) is a community rehabilitation program that operates through the March of Dimes Canada organization. Their aim is to "work on the brain to change the body. Participants are taught skills and techniques to help them overcome the challenges of their disability - they learn how to apply these strategies to their everyday life, becoming more independent." (quote from the March of Dimes website)
Ali and I signed James up for CE which occurs once a week for a period of 12 weeks. Here, James works in a small class setting with other children on their motor development.
Video links of James working with Monika at March of Dimes CE:
And this one is just too cute not to post:
Watching James learn and explore during these sessions has been very rewarding. He has already shown some small gains, and he loves the songs that Monika and her team sing as they encourage his movement through exploration. Another neat aspect of this program is their value on social learning. There are other children in the class and James is very attentive to what they are doing. This helps to invoke his learning, prompt him to take risks, and shapes the environment to feel less like "therapy" and more like play. A healthy brain is shaped by love and play. This is something that Ali and I want to be cognizant of for James. We don't want his childhood to be characterized by therapy and work. Yes, we will do everything we can to maximize his options for physiotherapy to allow for greater independence in his abilities. But, he needs to also be like every other child and have countless experiences of fun, play and spontaneity. Conductive Education attempts to balance these two realities.
The next video is the promotional video taken from the Conductive Education website. Madison, the young girl in the second half of this video, is a CP warrior (as our parent support group calls them) and her path in life has many similarities to James'. Her mother, Katherine, has written an extensive blog for Madison named "madimoves.com". It was through reading this blog, and the wealth of commentary and information in it about her daughter living with cerebral palsy, that was a key factor inspiring me to also begin this blog for James. If you have time I highly suggest reading through her blog.
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