Glowkids works in active partnership with Iris Ltd to deliver the Iris Conductive Education programme. Iris Ltd. is the only organisation currently offering pure Conductive Education in Auckland.
History
Professor András Peto is the father of Conductive Education. He was born in 1893 in Hungary. His mother was an educator. His father suffered from Parkinsons Disease. It was their influence that led him to become both an educator and a physician.
Peto studied medicine in Vienna, Austria and began developing the theory of Conductive Education in the 1930s. By 1945, he had established a centre for people with motor disorders in Budapest, Hugary's capital. This centre became officially recognized in 1950 and has since been named The Peto Institute.
Peto's approach was based on newly discovered scientific evidence of the time, which described the brain's unique capacity to form new connections despite even the most severe damage. Today we call this cerebral plasticity.
It is now widely known that people with motor disorders can learn new skills by utilizing undamaged areas of the brain. According to Professor Peto, this ability can be mobilised with the help of a properly guided, active learning process. Hence the term "conductive".
Professor Peto was the first to consider disability as an educational challenge rather than a biological problem. At GlowKids, we see cerebral plasticity at work through Iris Ltd.'s unique Conductive Education programme.
