Efficacy of programmes based on Conductive Education for young children with cerebral palsy

Conductive Education (CE)-based programmes have been introduced to Australi a over the past 10 years. The aim of this project was to compare these prog rammes with traditional neurodevelopmental programmes of rehabilitation for young children (12 to 36 months, mean age aa months 3 weeks) with cerebral palsy. Thirty-four children were matched by age, motor impairment, and cog nitive ability and randomly allocated to CE-based or equivalent-intensity c ontrol programmes. Those unwilling to be randomized (32) were still studied but their outcomes were treated separately. Our results indicate that chil dren involved in CE-based programmes made similar progress to those involve d in traditional programmes. Statistically significant changes were spread among the four groups of subjects. The findings also endorsed the measures used and the expected maturational effect was detected. Although there were major difficulties in conducting this randomized trial, it was achieved by gathering parental and professional support, and adequate funding.