Six elements are required in order to facilitate the process of Conductive Education. It is very important to note that these elements are not a series of disconnected features. Having some of them does not mean that Conductive Education is operating. They are interconnected and vital parts of the whole process.

1. The Conductor

The Conductor is a highly qualified professional who delivers Conductive Education. Conductors are responsible for the initial assessment of participants, planning and delivering of the programme, leading and guiding the group. They develop the programme based on the requirements of each participant and that of the group.

This work involves selecting the appropriate activities, tasks, facilitations and constantly observing each member's performance and modifying the programme and timetable as necessary. It is the Conductor's job to create situations that encourage learning and problem solving, to hold the participants' attention and ensure they remain motivated.

The Conductor guides participants towards realistic goals, promoting the feeling of achievement. This enables successful learning for the participants and helps them recognise and take responsibility for their own goals in the learning process.

The focus of the Conductor is always on the positive. Rather than concentrating on what an individual can't do, the Conductor is thinking of ways how they could or building on what they already can. The Conductor praises even the tiniest of success and through this he or she promotes motivation, active learning and the development of self-esteem in the participants.


Conductors develop a special partnership with learners, having particular notice of every aspect of their personalities, interests, development, abilities and needs.

It is the Conductors' job to organise and co-ordinate other professionals' involvement in the care and education of the student or client, ensuring the best service possible. Conductors are working together with other professionals and incorporating their expertise as a team. They refer clients to specialists, consulting and implementing their recommendations into the daily programme.

Lastly, the Conductor has a precious role to play in working closely with the families of those with motor disorders. Conductors recognise parents as the primary educators in children's lives, and see the family as central to their development. Conductive Education seeks to work in close partnership with parents, providing support and training and working together to maximise each child's potential.

2. The programme

Perhaps it is easiest to understand what the programme means in Conductive Education terms if we say, the programme starts when the person wakes up and finishes when he/she goes to bed. The programme therefore is a way of life.

It is a planned, day-by-day programme of learning and practising. The Conductive Education programme is all embracing and highly complex. It includes everything that characterises a person's everyday life from personal hygiene and mealtimes to learning, play or work. The programme satisfies all physical, intellectual and social requirements needed for developing an integrated personality. The programme for the day will depend on the person's age and their individual needs.

For many it will include getting out of bed, washing, getting dressed or eating and drinking. All these activities are included within the daily routine. For a school aged child the programme will also incorporate academic lessons, playing with other children; while for the adult, it may consist of working, hobbies or family duties. As the individuals develop so will their needs, responsibilities and priorities change.

The programme is an evolving, dynamic process not a series of routines. It is the functionality of the programme that makes it a motivator and a facilitator at the same time. It is wrong to believe that the Conductive Education programme only happens in the centre or school with the Conductors; if understood and practised properly, the whole day and every day will become conductive.

3. The task series and daily routine

Task series are a structured part of the daily programme. They are the teaching tools of Conductive Education and not a set of exercises as outsiders sometimes describe them. They equip the participants with the techniques and skills, which they can use throughout the day in all functional activities.
The personal goals of people with motor disabilities will often involve large achievements like walking, communicating, bathing or dressing independently.

With a great deal of practice, these can be achievable for some of them, but, of course, individuals will need to build up the skills necessary to accomplish them. In motor-disabled people the basic elements of movement may have been lost or never developed. Therefore these must be taught and practised systematically and regularly. This is why Conductive Education 'breaks down' the complex movements involved in such activities into small, simple, achievable steps. For example, the child who is learning to put on his coat first needs to learn to stretch his arm, hold the coat, recognise the different parts, reach behind his back, and so on.

The movements in the task series are built around the most basic, simple movements of the human body, like bending or stretching legs, lifting arms, reaching and grasping, moving head, feet and hands. These movements, however, do not enable a person to perform everyday activities unless they are used in different combinations and connected with meaningful goals.

The daily routine in Conductive Education takes people through this practise of building up smaller tasks into more complex movements and applying them into meaningful, functional, real-life situations and implementing them in different situations.

For each person the task must be presented in a way, which allows them to succeed, at the same time as they are learning a new skill or reinforcing a newly acquired one. To try and then fail is demotivating. If the conductor performs the task for the participants, they will not experience success. If however the conductor sets up the situation and conducts, guides the person through it, active learning will take place which can be applied in other situations.

4. Intention / Rhythmical intention

When we are faced with a difficult or new task, we pull from somewhere within ourselves the intention to act. The result of our action will depend on the power of this inner will rather than on our physical strength. Many people with neurological conditions may lack this intention; not because they don't want to act but because they don't possess the neurological processes required to do so. While it is an automatic course of action for most of us, people with motor disorders need to consciously learn it. Another typical thing we all do when we solve the previously mentioned difficult task is to talk ourselves through it. In this way we monitor and control our own actions.

Conductive Education uses this method. When an intention is verbalised, like "I grasp the ring", a number of cognitive processes occur which prepare the central nervous system for action. It helps the individual to plan, imagine, and implement the movement, and maintain concentration on the task.


Conductors also support participants to create purposeful, controlled movements by providing them with a rhythm to move to. This could be done through rhymes, song, music, dynamic speech or by counting. We all know how motivating a good rhythm can be, how exercise can be energised by a strong, catchy beat -the same processes in the brain which make that happen are used in Conductive Education. Each action is given an appropriate rhythm, which may vary in pace with different conditions and people. People with spasticity need a slower, gentler pace to alleviate increased muscle tone and avoid unwanted spasms and reflexes.

Persons with involuntary movements need to learn how to give an aim to their movement; they will need actions that are more brisk and directed. Throughout the day in Conductive Education, language and rhythm are used to help people give their movements meaning, control and purpose.

5. The group

Vital part of education and development is that it is always a social experience. People learn by interacting with others, watching the example of others, listening to or reading the words of others. Conductive Education recognises this, and considers group rather than individual work to be essential. Groups provide the most natural, social and motivating learning environment, and the most true-to-life, in which development flourishes.

The group provides participants a sense of belonging, an opportunity for socialisation and plenty of models. Group members are seeing and encouraging each other and recognising each other's improvements that inspire them to experience the same. Most activities in Conductive Education are based within a group, but they also focus on each individual's needs. Children who participate in Conductive Education are grouped by their age and needs.

6. Facilitation/equipment

Equipment prescribed for people with disabilities is often designed to give maximum support. But helping too much easily leads a disabled person to learn to be passive, to feel powerless and to limit what they can do for themselves. Maximum physical support means that people with motor disorders don't need to practise their active, independent movements and without using them the skills will vanish. Conductive Education works hard to avoid this. It encourages participants to be as independent as they can in all situations. Conductors facilitate rather than support or help.

Similarly, in Conductive Education equipment is used that gives just enough support so that tasks are achievable but only with effort. Consideration is always given to the positioning of students and clients, stimulation and the environment to facilitate participants to be as active and independent as possible throughout the day.