Doing the Chores

"On duty" March 2010

It is so interesting how some chores are not chores at all. Some have become activities that I have learnt and at the same time learnt to love. Other chores are not chores when done in other people's houses.

The rest, though, remain chores wherever they are done!

I have just been carrying out one of those chores that I love and I was wondering why this is.

The snow had almost gone. It had been a bit drizzly and wet for two days but I thought no longer is there the need for warm, water-proof snow-boots. Leather shoes and boots have taken their places again on the shoe rack, after not being worn for two whole months. Even so, although the snow was melting away, the grit is still around and there is still a danger that, when it rains, the salt will leave white lines on leather shoes.

Action was needed

Out came the shoe-polishing kit, filled to overflowing with an array of rags and many brushes in all sizes, with tins of polish in ever colour imaginable, even though most of my shoes are now black!

I covered the floor in newspaper, then I fetched a cushion and I plonked myself on it in my usual place in the middle of the hall, ready for a shoe-cleaning marathon.

I love cleaning shoes. I clean shoes with gusto, with spit and polish and with elbow grease. I love it, I have loved it since I was a very small child.

I learnt to love it because I did it with my Dad and he loved it. We cleaned his work shoes together every single day, rubbing and brushing until I could see my face in them. They would be covered in coal dust when he got home, so the difference between before and after was great and it was very satisfying “work”.

My Dad and I would then do my school shoes, my sister’s school shoes and last but not least my Mum’s shoes.

While we polished I would listen to stories, sometimes about shoes, mostly about trains and what there was to see en route from Norwich to London and from Norwich to the Norfolk coast. I soon knew what to do when a sheep was stuck on its back – stop the train and turn it over! I learnt what to do when a pheasant was hanging on the front of the train – take it home and eat it! I learnt about the single roads and leaning out of the window to pass the hoop to the driver coming in the opposite direction. I discovered where the heronry was and where the glow-worms could be seen. I knew where the flamingo stood and where the swan was mourning her mate. I knew where the cows always got out of their meadow on to the line, and I knew which farmers were friendly and which were not. I almost personally knew the lady who always stood at the gate crossing every day and waved.

I heard about dead man's handles, and frying breakfast on the coal shovel, about learning the road, and speed restrictions. I knew in great detail the comings and going of the mess rooms in Thorpe, Norwich and Liverpool Street, London. I knew who made the best cup of tea and who was best at playing cards.

I knew quite a lot really for a little girl who loved cleaning boots .

When I was about thirteen I had the best pair of chestnut brown shoes that one could wish for, for polishing that is. They came up with the toes looking like brand new conkers fresh out of the shell. By this time if Dad’s shift didn’t coincide with school then I became the main shoe-polisher in the family, I was on shoe-polishing duty. I don’t think that my sister has polished a pair of shoes in her life.

I didn’t mind doing it alone as I loved to be able to shine them as well as Dad could, but I missed the stories. I still clean my shoes when I am home at the same time as my Dad cleans his, just for the company and his stories.

This evening, as I rubbed and brushed and polished and spat, I composed this posting for my blog.

PS

There are other chores that I learnt to love.

Like weeding gardens

That’s because of the stories too, stories about life that Mum and I told to each other when I was home from college for the holidays, while weeding next to each other in her garden. I still tell myself stories whenever I weed, in whoever's garden!

And ironing

That’s the other chore that I enjoy, another one with a story attached to it. When I was tiny my rather loopy Great Auntie Winnie would come to help Mum with the ironing every Monday evening. She would iron and I would watch, and she would tell me crazy stories about her earlier life in Northern Ireland. I got hooked on ironing!

In my twenties when still in England I ironed for the old lady next door, I did it while listening to the Tuesday play on BBC Radio 4. There were not such loopy stories on the BBC but they were still stories

Buying paint, an important "bit-in-between"

"Still no spring-green", by Susie Mallett, March 2010

Yesterday afternoon I took myself off to the art shop in the middle of the city. Normally I would walk but it was bitterly cold so I went by tram and U-Bahn.

I had a shopping list

I bought everything that was on, the and of course a lot more.

I haven’t been painting much over the past year but started again very recently. So it is also a long time since I went into town especially to go to the art shop. Normally town is a place that I avoid on a Saturday. Actually I avoid the whole city on Saturdays as I do not like the bustling crowds.

Today there were no crowds. The Club were not playing football, that always makes a big difference and the bitter weather kept people cosy indoors too. The art shop was surprisingly empty and there were lots of assistants available and willing to help.

On my list for the art shop were some gold and silver ink, gold and silver crayons, some metallic acrylic paints, and some gold powder. I also needed cadmium-red, alizarin-crimson, and cobalt-green half-pans of watercolour. These are tiny and expensive, and gorgeous to look at. I like these little half-pans even more when they are clean and shining in the paint tin before use, they look almost good enough to eat!

Added to these in my basket was a 32 x 24 cm pad of 125-lbs, rough, watercolour paper to continue the series that I have began painting in 2010. Luckily I found some almost identical in texture and colour as the paper that I have just finished, that I had bought in the UK.

That wasn’t all that I put in my shopping basket

I found two pairs of scissors that I think may be perfect for the next stages in learning to cut for my athetoid littlie.

I found a nice fold-out, concertina-type card that I will use to create something appropriate for my grand-niece/nephew when it at last arrives on the scene (due last Sunday).

I found some blank do-it-yourself memory cards that I will use at work with the children, or maybe even for myself, and I bought some heart-shaped beer-mats for guests to paint at a friend's wedding, and that was it.

I stuck my hands in my pockets and walked, eyes facing forwards not to be tempted by the bits and pieces strategically placed like the chocolates in the supermarkets, to the cashier!

I was very pleased with my purchases and impressed by how restrained I had been considering the lovely things that I had seen and touched. I love art shops, I would love to have the opportunity to do one of those shopping trolley runs like they used to do years ago. Five minutes to fill the trolley with paints and brushes, easel and canvases, pads of paper and, my biggest weakness of all, sketch-books!

I can dream and, until the dream comes true, I can keep my hands in my pockets.

Affordable clothes

With my rucksack full of goodies I walked ithrough the Siberian wind back towards the U-Bahn. On the way I noticed that there was a sale on at one of my two favourite, affordable clothes shops. Actually the one that I spotted yesterday is affordable only when there is a sale on!

I had been looking at my wardrobe recently and had decided that in the next months I should purchase a pair of black trousers if I found any going cheap. There they were, along with a cheap shirt, not exciting but warm. I also came across a lightweight, black, long, thin-wool jacket/ cardigan, ideal to throw in my suitcase in spring and autumn, even in summer if I am visiting the UK!

I didn’t buy anything fancy, all very sensible things that I had decided that I needed at some time or other. Here they all were in one shop. That is the way I like to go shopping, quick and painless and no crowds.

Although the art shop was the more exciting store, the temptation had been just as strong in the clothes shop.

The assistant was about the same age as me, and had lots of time as the shop was almost empty and spontaneously began bringing me things to try on. I love it when this happens because I am just as much an opsimath when it comes to clothes, as I am with books.

I enjoy it very much when women of my own age feel happy to advise me. This lady was really good at it, she brought me lots of things that I would really have enjoyed wearing but would never have chosen for myself. I would have loved to have bought them all. I probably would have bought them all if I didn’t want to travel to Hong Kong this year and desperately need a new laptop.

I resisted here too, put all but the three sensible items back on the shelf, and walked to the cashier, coincidently spending exactly the same in both shops!

With many thanks to helping hands

"Lightness in the darkness", by Susie Mallett, March 2010

Two years old today

At two years old one of my little clients would still be in the parent-and-child group with Mum, both of them learning together as they set off on their chosen conductive-upbringing path in life.

My blog and I have been learning just like that over the past two years. we have tentatively been moving on step by step, at times motivating ourselves but often very much appreciating the motivation provided by the group that we belong to: the conductive blogosphere group!

Without this group, making themselves known by the appearance of little purple dots on my map, by the occasional comments and by regular emails, I may not have reached almost four-hundred and forty postings in twenty-four months.

I must admit I was aiming for the five-hundred mark, but that's all right, aiming high is what I advise all my conductive families to do!

I am quite happy with my four-hundred-and-thirty-seven postings. I hope that my readers are happy too.

Notes

Hands -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0_P6y8dqAc&feature=related

We have all the time in the world

"Snow-flattened green", by Susie Mallett, March 2010

There is another interesting article in this week's Weekly Guardian, this time in the Weekly Review.

Chris Arnot writes, in "Pictures of health", about a set of books used for encouraging conversation and to wake up memories.

The article describes books that where first developed by Helen Bates, architect and illustrator, to encourage conversation between her ten-year old son and her mother who was developing demetia.

It describes much the same things that I do in my stroke and multiple sclerosis groups to encourage delving deep into locked-away memories, and then to talk about them.

I use photographs, paintings and series of images to develop communication skills and use of more abstract thinking, and to encourage the use of the imagination.

The project written about in the Guardian Weekly and now put in to action in six care homes in England, is called "Pictures to share".

Chris Arnot writes that this project is:

" a combination of striking images coupled with a few lines of large-print text to stimulate memories of past pleasures and experiences. One of the books is called Beside the Seaside, hence the importation of beach-balls and sand.

Other titles include In the Garden, Women's Work, A Sporting Life and A Funny Old World."

I looked them up in the Internet and discovered that there are many more titles. You can even flip through the pages to make choosing your title easier.

While I was browsing around this site I discovered that under "resources" on the left-hand side of the page there were links to You Tube. It is hoped that these selected clips will stimulate conversations and spark the memories of the clients, just as the books do.

Here on the You Tube links I found my old favourite, Louis Armstrong, and it is here that I found him singing the title of the posting: "We have all the time in the world"

I was sorting through my files the other day, the ones containing all the pictures that I have collected over the years, all glued on to separate pieces of card and kept in individual plastic sleeves. I was looking for appropriate images to use with my new stroke client.

It seems that yet again I may have missed the boat, but on the other hand maybe I have just been given more reassurance that even without making it on to the boat I am on the right track.

What I have been using with my clients for years has popped up its head in a project in care homes in Coventry, in central England.

I will not be investing in any of these very nice looking books, although I am very interested to hear from anyone who is using them in their work.

I will stick to the hand-made versions though, if there is at some time a bit of spare cash in the pot, I may be able to put my pictures into little books instead of being stuck on separate pieces of card.

Notes

Guardian Weekly -

5-11 March, 2010, Weekly Review

Pictures of health by Chris Arnot

Pictures to share-
http://www.picturestoshare.co.uk/shop/books

Louis Armstrong -
http://www.picturestoshare.co.uk/useful-resources/youtube/louis-armstrong

We should be singing at the tops of our voices

"Who needs Words?" by Susie Mallett, March 2010

From singing to speaking, in many difficult steps

Type in "singing", or "learning to sing" n the search box at the top of my blog and look at how many times it gets mentioned in relationship to my work. In particular in the stroke groups.

Here are a few of them:

http://www.susie-mallett.org/2009/09/what-difference-group-makes.html

http://www.susie-mallett.org/2009/02/better-late-than-never.html

I have known one member of the stroke group for a long time. When we met she couldn’t utter more than one-word answers and I couldn’t speak German very well.

We spoke a bit of English, which she understood, and sometimes she could answer with more than one-word “sentences” .

What we soon discovered was that this lady could sing. This was in 1996. In 1992 I had discovered in the Petö Institute that the stroke clients could sing.

In 1996 my client told me that words to hundreds of songs had disappeared but were now stored somewhere very deep in her memory. Most of the tunes however were still there for fast recall, and if they were not then she would read the sheet music and quickly re-discover the tune.

Together we would read the words written below the music. First she would read them silently and at the same time I would read them out loud. Then we would read them together out loud, tapping the rhythm as we spoke. The rhythm was given by my client, as she was the musical one amongst us!

The last step would always be to sing the words. The rhythm was kept going by me and I would also mouth the words and say out loud those that my client had difficulty with.

Through doing this over the course of thirteeen years we developed from one-word answers to flowing conversations. We also developed from repeating words and singing together while sitting down, to standing and singing, to re-joining the choir and then her taking on the job of musical director. My client also assists me in teaching our conductive group to sing!

We use the same method together in the group whenever we have new clients with a severe problem communicating with speech.

My client of thirteen years is still the musician amongst us. She is also the most fluent speaker.

When she phoned me this week to arrange an appointment she spoke to me so clearly, so confidently and with so much aplomb that, when she had finished, I just had to congratulate her. She said that she and her husband had also noticed that once again she had made a huge step forward. The pride that she felt, the smile on her face, wwere tangible.

This, by the way, is a lady who, when I met her three years after the stroke, and still only managing one-word answers, had already been told that her entitlement to speech therapy had come to an end.

What an example she would be to all those people doing “research”, to all those people who decide that after three years no more progress is possible.

We know different!

Talking about research

That is actually the reason for this posting.

As always on a Friday, I was pleased to find the Guardian Weekly in my post-box last night when I got home from work. I actually fell asleep over it at the kitchen table after my fish supper, but not before I had finished the Diversions and the Books pages. I read this in Dispatches:

Stroke patients sing

Scientists have taught stroke patients to talk again by getting them to sing words instead of speaking them.

The technique known as “melodic intonation therapy”, led to patients recovering their speech after other attempts at rehabilitation had failed.

Doctors are now testing the therapy in 30 stroke patients to assess how many people who lose their speech after a stroke would benefit.

Gottfried Schlaug, a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School, found that patients who suffered a stroke on the left side of their brain were unable to speak, but could often be taught to sing words instead.”

I just wonder how much money went into all this “research”. Just think how many people could attend conductive groups if given the same amount of money.

Wouldn’t it be nice to be asked?

I cannot be the only person in the world who knows that singing with the stroke group develops their speech, probably more than any other method.

I practised it in groups at the Petö Institute nearly twenty years ago, so there are a lot of other conductors out there who are also aware of this. There will be a lot of “visiting other professionals” who saw it there too.

There are also all the other speech therapists and physiotherapist and other therapists all over the world, who have either been taught this or discovered it for themselves.

How come the “scientists” receive money to discover something that in practise is “common knowledge"?

Or is it?

Come on “scientists” why don’t you start asking around before so much money is poured into researching something that is already known.

Notes

The Guardian Weekly -

5-11 March 2010, p.31 Dispatches

Weather report!

"My friends on the balcony", March 6th, 2010

"Snow on the way", 5th March 2010

"Not a painting yet", 5th March 2010

"Walking home", 5th March 2010

That seems to be all that I have time for these days

Still no bike, but lots more snow, some of the best soft fluffly snow of the whole winter. It came after some gorgeous cold, very cold, sunny days, with the kind of skies that we have wished for the whole winter long.

In the past few days of snow-free earth I also I spied a centimetre or two of crocus green showing through in the front gardens between home and the tram stop.

Hope is in the air!

As well as some more snow.

One advantage of the snowy weather is thatI have no trouble deciding what clothes to wear. Ski trousers, long black coat and snow boots are the only option for me. It is the only way that I keep warm and stay on my feet.

The spring-green wool coat is back on the hanger for the next attempt at spring.

Minus four, still no sign of my bike

"The return of winter after five days of spring"

Always solving problems, always finding solutions, even in the art room!

Recycled trees

Raw materials

Under construction

Words of encouragement

Two hours later, low and behold a recycled forest!

"Never-throw-anything-away Susie"

I have several boxes in the arty-crafty cupboard at work, just like the two in the picture above . They contain scraps of materials of all sorts that I just cannot bring myself to throw away. You just never know when they could come in useful, and that's why I have been given the name "Never-throw-anything-away-Susie"

It is on days like yesterday that I realise that it is just as well that I hoard.

My arty client wanted to make a picture of trees on a green background. A big picture of trees at that.

We looked at the possibilities

I had no large sheets of green paper, actually I have no large sheets of paper at all at the moment strong enough to withstand a lot of painting.

I had just been sent a pile of old posters from the 2008 Conductive Congress in Munich but the paper was much to thin to paint on. So the only thing for it was to reinforce the thin poster-paper by making our own green background, using paper-scraps out of one of my lovely boxes.

We then found another box that had cut-offs of a foam material in it. We rummaged in there and sorted out all the dark bits.

I always have huge pots of glue and old paint-brushes, so we set to work.

I give the encouragement, throw in a few a few ideas now and then, sometimes assist with the gluing, smile a lot and enjoy the creating.

We were both very pleased this week with the result of our efforts.

The future

I am working on having a bigger project in hand, one that doesn't get taken home immediately it is finished, but needs several weeks working on it. My client asked about taking this art work home even before work on it has begun. I think it is very important for us to start having some long-term projects as well as the shorter, quicker art works.

As the nice weather returns we could get some huge canvases outside and slop the paints around a bit. Then we just need to find a bank or a hopistal willing to display the oversized pictures.

Looking at things from a different point of view

"Bird's-eye view", Susie Mallett, January 2010

Contributions to a much-needed discussion

In his posting on 24th February Andrew Sutton hoped to open up a discussion when he listed the following points that he had discovered somewhere presumably somewhere in cyberspace.

• One conductor leads the class through a series of repetitive excercises
• Use of special equipment (ladders, chairs, plinths, tabletops) to create the prescribed environment
• Activities include teaching life skills and age appropriate academic and social lessons (i.e. potty training, snack time, music)
• Classes are typically grouped by children's age and ability

Clearing up some common misunder-standings

Yes, one conductor may lead a group at a given time. Sometimes the conductor is alone in a group with four or maybe ten clients, then the one conductor must lead the whole session. The conductor could be there with two or three colleagues then one of the others will take over the leading when planned and sometimes when not planned.

There is never a series of repetitive exercises. There is a series of movements devised for each group, with individual solutions for each client. The movements included in a programme are those needed for learning specific skills. This cannot be" repetitive", it must continuously change as the clients become more and more skilful.

Most people know my views on furniture: it isn’t the do-all-and-end-all of “Petö”. Conductive Education is just that, an education. It is not reliant on furniture to be successful. How the use of such furniture creates a good environment I have no idea, unless it is when the plinths get used as an easel, or get thrown on the bonfire. The atmosphere in a group has to do with people, personalities and souls.

An atmosphere is not prescribed for a group, it develops. The aim is to create a desire to work, though fun, enjoyment, motivation and activities. And not one piece of furniture is needed to achieve that!

Activities in Conductive groups include all sort of things, Conductive Education is to do with learning to live a full life, so we do everything that anyone else would do to achieve this. If that means rolling, we roll. If it means baking, we bake. We also sing, climb, stick, sew, paint, read, crawl, act, dress up, drum, play hospitals and schools. We pretend to dive and swim, or we really dive and swim, we ski, ride bikes, hop, skip and jump. Why do we do all of these things? They are the "skills" that we need to live.

These activities are provided in the appropriate situations to encourage learning something very specific, or even just for fun using skills already learnt! We learn skills to become as independent as possible and as active as possible in lie.

Age-appropriate? I don’t think so. Whatever the age of clients, eight or eighty, if they want to learn something, and are motivated to learn something that they haven’t already achieved, then it is taught regardless of it being “age-appropriate” or not. If a client of thirty-five wishes to learn to dress alone than we find out how we can help. If a child of three can learn this then we help here too. All of the movements used to dress are used in other activities, so we are not only teaching someone to dress it is the motivation to learn that is important and one movement and motivation leads on to another. We don’t teach people to eat a biscuit or clean their teeth. We motivate them to want to do it alone, then we teach them how.

"Classes are grouped by age and ability". This is a bit contradictory isn’t it? A Kindergarten group will have children in it aged from under three years old to seven. Just like all Kindergartens these children will not be able to do the same as each other, or even the same as others of the same age. They all learn from each other and they all teach each other, that’s how groups work.They are not all put in a group because they are all five or because they can all sit on the toilet alone! The learning that takes place depends on the child’s needs at the time.

In an adult stroke group ages can range from thirty to eighty, their abilities likewise have just as wide a range.

Note

This is Andrew's original posting.

http://www.conductive-world.info/2010/02/no-please-dont-say-such-things.html

Maybe no one else thinks it important to respond to such things. But if people who know better hold their tongues, for whatever reason, then whose fault is it that we still hear suck poppycock, and worse, about the job that we love?

I don't want it to be mine.

PS

I counted seven too.

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue

"Vocalising", February 2010

Let‘s begin with the blue

The sun popped its head out from behind a cloud this week. We have had a couple of days when we could believe spring is springing, with the sky a beautiful cobalt blue. The world looked different, it was different. There were smiles on people's faces, a few cycles on the bike path, flattened brown/green grass on the verges, and the waist-high piles of snow are disappearing.

We have had three months with not only masses of snow but no sun. To have blue above our heads now, twice in a week, has made a big difference to most of the souls in Nürnberg. I travelled to work in sunshine and I came home in sunshine, that really does make a difference.

Something old

The stroke group has been coming to me for the past three weeks. Now that is a really old group, it is the second oldest one that I have after the group for workers. The clients themselves are not, however very old, relatively young in fact compared to other times in the ten-year history of this group.

The clients are not old. Some have also only been there for a short time so they are new clients, but the group is old.

What does that mean for us?

It means that the group is well established and has a well-oiled routine, a routine that can change at the drop of a hat just because it is so old and well-oiled.

It means that I know what I am doing. I know where to find everything that I need, and the clients learn where everything is too. It means that I know the clients and they know me.

I think, though, that the most important thing is that the clients feel that the group is old. Being in the group gives them a feeling of security and again this prepares us for the new.

We have lots of changes

We welcome many visitors and our door is always open. We do many things at a moment's notice but the group has a underlying routine and this security allows us to be adventurous.

This old group is planning a new adventure for the next block. One of our members has had his driving licence restored.He is just waiting for his car to be altered and the world will his oyster once again.

The car has to have a knob fitted on to the steering wheel and possibly a brake and gas lever fitted on to the right -hand side of the steering column. When these alterations have been checked by the MOT people we all are off!

This client will not need to rely on a driver to get him to the group any more an,d to celebrate his freedom, he has promised to drive us to the cafe in the village for coffee and cake. The treat will be on me. That will be our first-ever trip out together, as we have never had the transport before. We have never had a client get his driving licence restored either.

The adventures are 'the new made possible because of the old.

Something borrowed

Staying with the stroke group...

The client with the car walks with a tall, fully extended "Nordic walking" stick. These sticks are telescopic and some can be extended to reach a length of about 175 cms.

This man has always used this stick, never a shorter one, when he walks in the street. It gives him a bit of added security when he moves between the bustling crowds. It good to watch him walking, very upright, looking a bit like a shepherd or a bishop watching over his flock.

Using such a tall stick means that the head is lifted and the back is straighter, with very little bending at the waist, both necessary for a good field of vision when a shepherd observes where his flock is wandering or when my client is negotiating his way across a busy street.

Last week the rest of the group got very interested in this stick. I have always recommended these taller sticks to them but no one else has taken them up. Until this last week, that is.

At some stage during the individual walking programme they all asked whether they could try out that stick.

Gradually we had one delighted shepherd after the other, all with heads held high, backs as straight as soldier’s, all of them looking like very different people. An energy entered their whole countenance, a spring was in their steps.

By the following session we had one group member who had borrowed a Nordic walking stick from his dad and one who had borrowed the sticks from her husband. A third was going to use his wife’s and the fourth was going out at the weekend with his wife actually to buy one!

I wait with anticipation for the next time we meet, to hear about the results of using these borrowed sticks.

On to the new

I have already talked about a lot of new things, either experiences that we have had in the group or plans that we have in the making. Now it is on to something that is new for me.

I often accompany my clients on trips to doctors, to their therapists, or to the boot-makers. I sometimes accompany parents on visits to schools for parents' evenings, and I sometimes visit classes alone. These visits are either out of my own interest or after requests from parents, sometimes (but more rarely) on request from the other professional. This week I did something that in my almost twenty-one years working in Conductive Education I have never done before. I attended a speech therapy session with one of my young children.

At the same time that I discovered Conductive Education in 1987, I was working in special education in England. I worked very closely with a speech therapist. She was an inspiration to me and I still think about her often. I am grateful for the knowledge that she passed on to me when we were working together in my classroom at lunchtimes, teaching children, and a heap of assistants, therapists, grandmas and other helpers, how to enjoy their mealtimes. Since that I have had no contact with speech therapists, except for this lady in the UK. I still write emails to her asking her for advice.

Here in Germany most of my clients with speech difficulties have a speech therapist, though many stroke clients, despite their on-going need, do not get this provided by the health service for longer than about three years. This is one of the main reasons that they seek out conductive groups. Their therapy "allowance" gets slowly reduced as the years pass by, so they go on the search for something else.

The opportunity has not really arisen before for me to go to a speech therapy session. Often these take place in school, near home or at home. They are also only about twenty minutes long making a long journey to attend unfeasible. I have a child in my afternoon group who has speech therapy in blocks, this is quite unusual.

A week of afternoon “Petö” is replaced by a week of sessions with her speech therapist.

I always notice huge improvements in this child’s ability and her will to communicate each time that an intensive “speech” block has taken place. So intrigued to find out what she did I made an appointment to go with her. When I was there at the session this week the therapist told me that she also sees huge improvements after a couple of weeks of Petö sessions. That is always good to hear.

I have never known someone attending a block of speech therapy. I think that this is the ideal way for this child, especially in the winter months when there is a lot of illness about. No sessions get cancelled. If someone is ill the whole block gets postponed. There is an intensity in the work that cannot be achieved in twenty minutes a week and this means that Conductive Education sessions can be more intensive too.

Unfortunately last Monday no one had remembered to inform the therapist that I was coming too, but after her initial shock it was fine and Opa and I were put to work. Opa always attends so he knows what to practise later.

You know, one hears such dreadful stories about conductors and Conductive Education, and its relationships with therapists. I have never experienced this. I have never had a bad experience. Of course I have met therapists who are not convinced, but these therapists don’t invite me to watch them at work or ask to watch my groups. I have always had good experiences and this one with the speech therapist came very near to the top of the list.

What did I learn? Was there anything new?

For me the most important thing was the assurance that I received while observing that, as a conductor I am doing all right, just the same as when I was reading Makarenko last week. It was the same kind of feeling. I was once again reminded that I really did learn how to do it in my training, I really have learnt more through the years of practice and I did learn an awful lot from my speech therapist friend in 1987.

I observed this week with the speech therapist: the importance that she puts on getting legs, hips, chest and jaw in alignment to enable speech to flow more easily, just as I do it.

I learnt how she gives a bit of help to the back of the head, on the cheeks, under the chin and on the jaw, to reach an optimal position to produce the wanted sound, just as I do it.

I observed how with this child a favoured position for working is in a knee-stand, just, as it is for me. I learnt how I can give a bit of stability to this position with a thick roll placed between bottom and feet.

I learnt the process of how to encourage the sound sch, one of the most difficult letters in the German language for any child to pronounce, I was told.

We learnt to blow without saying 'pooh'. Winnie the Pooh was banned from the room and soon feathers were flying all over the place, without a sound.

I had time for a few words with the therapist alone and I explained how I do things and asked for a few tips. I also told her that we have so little time to deal with everything in the sessions and that, as before in 1987, a lot of my work to encourage the tongue and lip movements needed for speech are worked on while we eat. Swallowing, the therapist said, that will be what they work on in the next intensive block.

It isn’t only after such an intensive block that I see and hear huge developments in the speech of this child. It happens also after a holiday. After days spent with her family when there is time to sit and chat.

I came away from this new experience feeling pleased to have the new contact, happy to know a speech therapist around the corner, happy to have a place to go to to ask for advice.

Most of all I was again happy with the re-assurance that I am doing all right.