Ethical Implications

I am dealing with an ethical application form recently and some thoughts have grown in my mind.

Although there is a strong tendency to focus on doing no harm to CE participants, the long term consequences are not always easy to calculate. Summer (2006) writes of the rights to privacy, informed consent and confidentiality in social research as being some of the most difficult assurances to give to any participant. Conductive Education is particularly one of those development ideas which might cause some (if not more) harm. Ethical dilemmas are endemic in all methods, and we must show as CE professionals some concerns, too. Of course, numerous guidelines have been published and are available for professionals. However, guidelines are just that: they are not obligatory and are difficult to police, bearing in mind that they are open to individual interpretation and application. CE is a complex development system and it meets complex possibilities of causing harms.

Though, it is luck that ethical values themselves are not absolutes, and one can understand the problems of translating abstract and disputable principles into a set of practical and relevant guidelines to suit a variety of settings. It could be argued if we should ethical implication at all. I am afraid, however, we must. In conjunction with participants, parents, colleagues, make some moral judgements about the balance between the benefits of CE and the rights of others.