Conductive Education (CE)

The Conductive Education Program addresses the needs of students who have a physical disability and can be active participants in a challenging motor program, which is integral to their school day. It also addresses the needs of those with a complex physical and/or medical disability that requires changes of position on a regular basis throughout the day, to improve posture, improve associated skills and aid health. Classes consist of larger groups to accommodate the conductive group philosophy as a motivating factor and uses suitable classrooms to address this.

The program prides itself on having students out of their wheelchairs for the majority of the school day. We identify which skills each student can potentially achieve independence in and develop those skills through active and dynamic task series, where students are taught the basic skills required for accessing the curriculum and the world around them. These include lying, sitting, standing / walking, hand task series and oral motor task series.

Using the principles and philosophy of Conductive Education, which are led by Teacher Conductors, the daily routine is planned to include opportunities for movement and postural changes. The Conductors provide support with the collaborative setting of IEP targets, assisting in how to change position and to transfer between positions and places, offering passive stretching programs to ensure maintenance of current skills, the use of hand tasks, the development of life skills, the use and adjustment of equipment to assist in achieving better  postures and positions and the use of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) to support language acquisition (e.g. voice output devices, Pragmatic Organisation Dynamic Display (PODD) communication books, Aided Language Displays (ALD), Key Word Sign, Eye-gaze devices). They ensure that the focus is on maximising active engagement in all areas of learning.

Students are supported by teaching individual ways of problem solving and linking skills to achieve more  complex tasks, for example linking lying and sitting so that students know they can sit up from lying, as well as offering opportunities to practice and generalise skills across the school day and in different contexts.

Curricular activities are integrated into task series and both are embedded across the school day. All teachers and education assistants in CE classes have an understanding of, experience of and belief in CE and have regular opportunities to up-skill in relevant areas of theory and practice.

Click here to view a short video about Conductive Education in WA.