I read it, I thought it was interesting...

I read this article on http://www.origo.hu/. I thought it was interesting. Sorry, I did not translate it to English but I have tried the translator gadget and it was ok, so I suggest to use that.

Amerikai kutatók újabb lépést tettek abban a kísérletsorozatban, amelynek célja, hogy a lebénult emberek visszanyerhessék mozgásképességüket. Az agyból mesterségesen átirányított elektromos jelekkel képesek voltak mozgásra bírni majmok megbénított csuklóját.

Korábban más kutatóknak már sikerült majmokat betanítani arra, hogy egy robotkart irányítsanak az agyukból érkező elektromos jelekkel. Az agyat egy úgynevezett agy-számítógép illesztőegységgel (interfésszel) kapcsolták össze a robotkarral. A cselekvések - például fogás - végrehajtásához több tíz neuron (idegsejt) aktivitását kellett dekódolni, ami jelentős számítási kapacitást vett igénybe.
A mostani kísérletben Chet Moritz és munkatársai a seattle-i Washington Egyetemen hasonló jeleket használtak arra, hogy egyetlen neuronból származó közvetlen elektromos ingert juttassanak el egy megbénított izomhoz.
Először egy sor elektródát ültettek két makákó majom agyának mozgatókérgébe. Minden egyes elektróda egyetlen neuronból vett föl jeleket. Ezeket a jeleket külső áramkörön át egy számítógéphez vezették. A neuronból érkező jelek egy kurzort vezéreltek a képernyőn. A majmokat betanították, hogy csupán az agyműködésükkel vezéreljék a kurzort.
A kutatók ezután helyi érzéstelenítő szer befecskendezésével ideiglenesen megbénították a majmok csuklóizmait. Majd az elektródákból érkező jeleket átirányították, hogy elektromos ingerlést adjon a csuklóizmoknak. Azt tapasztalták, hogy a majmok ugyanazon agytevékenységükkel képesek voltak irányítani a korábban megbénított végtagokat. A majmok kevesebb mint egy óra alatt megtanulták a béna végtagok működtetését. A csoport a kísérlet eredményeit a Nature folyóirat legújabb számában tette közzé.
A neuron korábbi funkciója nem befolyásolta, hogy "betanítható" volt-e egy adott izom működtetésére vagy sem. "Bármelyik neuron egyaránt jól használható volt, attól függetlenül, hogy eredetileg kapcsolatban állt-e ezen izmok aktivitásával. Ez drámai mértékben megnöveli egy jövőbeli neurális művégtag működtetéséhez számba vehető neuronok mennyiségét" - jelentette ki Moritz.
A gyakorlati felhasználásra még várni kell
A klinikai próbákig azonban még valószínűleg sok év telik el. Bár a majmok mozgásteljesítménye jelentősen növekedett a gyakorlattal, a szükséges hosszú távú elektróda-implantátumok még alkalmatlanok az emberek számára.
Ráadásul egy izom mozgatása egy neuronnal nagyon jól végrehajtható, de egész cselekvések vagy koordinált mozgások létrehozása sokkal nagyobb kihívást jelent - figyelmeztet Andrew Schwartz, a pennsylvaniai Pittsburgh-i Egyetem kutatója, aki a fent említett robotkaros kísérletet végezte a majmokkal. "A több ízület működését igénylő mozgások nagyságrendekkel bonyolultabbak, mint ez a demonstráció."
Az eredmény mégis fontos lépés ezen a területen. Az agy és az izmok közti közvetlen összeköttetés kialakítása megszabadít a nagy kapacitást igénylő komputeres számításoktól, ami a jelek dekódolásához szükséges a robotkarok vagy más művégtagok működtetésénél. A mostani kísérletben csupán egy elemmel működtetett, mobiltelefon nagyságú chipre támaszkodtak, és a jövőben ez minden bizonnyal még kisebb lesz. "Már léteznek olyan kicsi elektronikák, amelyek elférnek egy ingzsebben, és néhány év múlva remélhetőleg olyanok is lesznek, amelyeket be lehet ültetni a bőr alá, akár egy pacemakert" - mondja Moritz.

A cikket az alábbi címen találja az [origo]-ban:
http://origo.hu/tudomany/20081016-majmok-agytevekenyseggel-mozgattak-megbenult-izmaikat.html

“Multidisciplinarity” in Conductive Education

I have a very busy 10 days behind me. Finally, I took my opportunity to sit down today and put these thoughts into a brief post. I was planning to do it since I saw A. Sutton’s blog earlier this month.

Andrew has posted an interesting note on „multidisciplinary” in his blog on 3th of October. He wrote the following regarding to Interconnections Multidisciplinary Information Service:

"I personally have never really understood the concept of ‘multidisciplinary’ as manifest in public services in the United Kingdom. The phrase ‘jack of all trades...’ springs to mind. More formally, I wonder, either there is a place and need for a ‘discipline’ or there is not. It is interesting therefore to see critical comment arise from within the paradigm itself.

If this is an emerging trend, then it is one meriting careful monitoring by the conductive movement."


This post caught my attention as I was lucky enough to work just about seven years in multidisciplinary team settings in Conductive Education. They were two different settings in two parts of the world but the similar idea of using CE. As I first joined to a multidisciplinary team I accepted at the beginning the idea of combining CE with something else which was meant to enhance the quality of the local service and I really wanted to give my best as a professional to it. As time passed by and I had worked some years through in this sorts of model I realised the real downsides of multidisciplinary as well.

(Why) Does Conductive Education need multidisciplinary setting?

It is a fact that multidisciplinary Conductive Education initiatives can be mostly found out of Hungary. It undeniably is because of the difficulty of adaption of CE into those places where the local system has not been able to recognise CE as a profession and the CE professionals. Therefore, founders find it easier to fit CE to the local system through multidisciplinary way. In this context, multidisciplinary meant to facilitate the business, operation, sustainability of CE on abroad but not to change the principals of CE or challenge a new system. Thus, answering the question from above: I believe CE does not necessarily need to be mixed with different methods.

Why?

All aspects of, and the nature of CE have been written in many papers, books and they can be found at many other sources, so I do not wish to deal with this. However, if one takes the opportunity and time to read those information or have already known the conductive pedagogy system can tell that CE is quite flexible in many areas and anyway, it is changing towards the better service. It is exactly because of its philosophical, pedagogical, holistic nature; making the whole kind of character.

My seven years experience in multidisciplinary CE service let me to assume that CE multidisciplinary settings are useful to look at, or to learn from but they do not seem to be providing a more successful habilitation, rehabilitation, education or motor-development service comparing to the “original” CE approach. One of the well defined reasons why that happens is that those services missing out the power of the teamwork of “holistic” trained conductors, the similar point of view of approach.

My conclusion is therefore that one can understand why certain initiatives move towards multidisciplinary out of Hungary but it would be ideal to put more effort to keep the well developed system as it is and modify it to local needs in between sense boundaries.

Please feel free to argue with this opinion!

Link to Andrew Sutton's blog:

http://www.andrew-sutton.blogspot.com/

Work related injuries in CE

Every profession has a kind of risk of injuries. Being a Conductor is a big challenge of helping people out of their disabilities however, it has a high risk to be injured due to the nature of the profession.

I have a soft tissue problem recently, so this made me to think about the following:

Sore shoulders, aching wrists, arms, legs or feet. Bad backs. These aches and pains aren't just the result of getting older :) or being out of shape. They are often related to our work, especially as a Conductive Education Teacher.
Many conductors are suffering of soft tissue injuries as a result of their work.
These injuries usually sneak up on us. Conductors often get on with their jobs, trying to "work through" the pain or ignore night time tingling in their hands, arms, backs, etc. But the injuries can become very painful and, sometimes permanent, disabilities. Depending on what is injured, other tissues can be affected.

What are these injuries called?

cumulative trauma disorders (CTDs);
overexertion/overuse injuries; and
repetitive strain injuries (RSIs).

Specific names include:

carpal tunnel syndrome (nerves going through wrist);
degenerative disk disease (backbone);
epicondylitis (tennis or golfer's elbow);
myofascial pain/myalgia (tissue covering muscles);
rotator cuff syndrome (shoulder tendons);
sciatica (nerve to leg from discs);
tendinitis (tendons); and
tenosynovitis/de Quervain's (tendon sheath/covering).

What makes it hurt?

Work-related soft tissue injuries can be caused by these risk factors, often working in combination:
repetition: especially for fine movements, strange positions;
force: lifting, pulling, pushing, contact pressure;
posture: awkward and static (in one position);
work environment: temperature, light, noise, humidity; and
work organisation: how hard, fast and long people work, how much say they have about their work and the equipment/tools they use, and social relations at work.

Conductors have a beautiful job title but their actual work can be very risky. Conductors' jobs often involve lots of repetition, precision work, static and/or awkward positions and tasks that are heavier than they look.

Work organization affects all other factors. For example:

Time pressure is important when dealing with people; packing equipment can increase the amount of repetition and force used if you have no breaks or time to do the job properly.
Many conductors lack control about everything from how they do their job to how long they have to, dare to do it.
The nature of CE and lack of proper equipment forces to put themselves at risk of back injuries while moving people.
Lack of respect or stereotyping are additional stressors, combined with generally lower wages.

Studies show that being stressed by things like this increases the odds of having some soft tissue injuries, especially for the back, neck and shoulders.

How are soft tissue injuries prevented?

Prevention is the best way to tackle any health and safety problem. For soft tissue injuries, prevention is based on ergonomics - the science and art of fitting the job and the workplace to workers.

For this we need:
fully-adjustable surfaces, equipment and work places;
a choice of tools for different hands and tasks;
accessible mechanical devices for lifting people or materials;
fully-adjustable chairs or sit-stand stools; and
to prevent stress by such things as:
having more say about your job and how you do it;
doing a variety of tasks;
reasonable schedules, hours of work and breaks;
adequate staff levels; and
proper training about the job and using ergonomic equipment.

How can we deal with a work-related soft tissue injury?

Take care of yourself:

See your doctor about getting time off, "light duty," splints, referrals.
Go to a specialist (rheumatologist, physical/rehab medicine) or occupational health centre.
Investigate massage, physiotherapy, chiropratic treatments, exercise (eg. yoga, Pilates, Alexander technique, Tai Chi).
Take your breaks, walk at lunch and/or do exercises on the job (eg. shoulder rolls, stretching).

Gestalt therapy

Fritz Perls (1893 – 1970), the American neuro-psychologist who first used Gestalt therapy as a title of his book, was very interested in drama plying when he was young. He studied and worked by Max Reinhardt the notorious director of Deutsches Theater. He learned about self-realization, creativity, spontaneity, motivation, vocation and verbal communication of thoughts from him. Later, he graduated and started his carrier as psycho analytics (Freud’s school) and learned psychodrama from Moreno. They were with Pető of the same age.

The legacy of Perls is the Gestalt Therapy what underlines the self-regulation and self-control of the organism. Its principle that the personality is coherent, organized and one entire, total organism is which also functions as a whole where body and mind are not separate, where parts working together in good coordination and the processes are integrated. The organism and environment is an integral whole, thus the person has a very close connection to the environment. Interactions are crucial in any function. The aim of Gestalt therapy is to start a developmental process where the person takes actively part in his own development. Practically, “self healing” should happen with particular emphasis upon of creation of self –knowledge. Opposite to psychoanalysis, in Gestalt therapy the client does not have to know why he can not do something. The question “why” is not important. The approach is very emotional, highlights the self responsibility, a lot of times nonverbal, it encourages clients to avoid the “I can’t do it” sentence. The therapy is carried out in group setting where interactions of participants are fundamental. The communication between clients called “encounter”, it is very important the self-expression where participants can speak only in “I “or “we” version about their experience, reaction and emotion. “Here and now”.
They write short novels, play roles in created situations as it were drama class, where is very important the self-realization, creativity, spontaneity, motivation, vocation and verbal communication of thoughts, self-expression. Everybody should do and say what they want.

Notes

http://www.psychotherapybristol.co.uk/

http://www.gestalt.org/

M Hári, Összehasonlító Konduktív Pedagógia, MPANNI Budapest,1998

About the "fantasy football"

I had been waited for the "Fantasy Football" post of Andrew Sutton since we had a chat sarcasticly mentioning "international pizza makers" and "soccer world" in context of Conductive Education earlier this year in Birmingham. There, in B'ham, we discussed if CE was a Hungarian speciality. Why CE was Hungarian if it was at all. We seemed not to agree of judging that and we took those above mentioned metaphores to convince of each other.

I would never been able to put it so well, so literary what Andrew wrote about fantasy football, now in a bit different context, in his blog on 20 September.

Undeniably, the metaphore works.

However, I think football is deviate a bit from CE. Football fans, wherever they are, they mostly know about the roots of their beloved sport, and yet, they know about the rules, pretty often the differences between those rules as well. Is this refer to CE "fans", too? I think we have enough evidence to suggest to say: no!

Also, those games happily called slightly different: football, american football, rugby and so on, even if they all chasing the leather some air in it. If someone goes to watch rugby is not suprised that there are no goals nets on it.

CE is not in this good situation I think. There are tones of different approaches out there having the same name of the kid... and fans asking for the goals...

What do you think?

Faludy Györgyre emlékezni

Tudom nem sok köze van a konduktív pedagógiának Faludy Györgyhöz, így rövid magyarázatra szorulok. Engedtessék meg azonban, hogy olykor kicsit személyes dolgokkal is szinesítsem a blogot.
Ma lenne 98 éves. Örommel és boldogsággal gondolok rá.

Inner and Outer: towards the Whole

I wish to continue my little journey what hopefully takes us to Conductive Education at the end. I mentioned Plessner.
Helmuth Plessner known as a representative of philosophical anthropology in addition to Arnold Gehlen and Max Scheler – who actually was his opponent. Plessner distinguished the three forms of organization of life.
Plants: are openly organized, they have no central institutions. Animals: are centrally organized, they live from a heart out. Humans: are eccentric, they have reflexive relationship to their life, reflexive self awareness. He analyzes the organization of humans as a double aspect: body and bodyguard.
Why Plessner? Because I believe that his philosophy helped, led us (the thinkers of the 19th and 20th century) to find the way towards to the basis of modern thinking of human and thereby, the basis of modern thinking of education. He understood as a philosophical anthropologist the unity of inner and outer of human, he initiated phenomenology and he introduced - opposite to Scheler - that the person is not “value determined” being but a “value neutral” being which is going to be something (!) else during his/her actions, confrontation with the world. He explained that our self-interpretation as human being should be taken as “tabula rasa”, thus “open question”.

Additionally, I wish to draw attention to two other thinkers because they were contemporary, because they both were personal anthropologists and because I have personal attachment to them. In fact, I find very important Martin Buber’s interpreted thoughts in his “Ich und Du” ( I and Thou) where we can learn about the synthetic thesis of dialogical existence what is also basis of the transformative thinking. The other transformer is Victor Frankl, who as a Holocaust survivor introduced logotherapy which is a form of existential analysis, expresses positive thinking and changing for the patients.

Of course, I can not mention everybody who I should here (because it is still a blog), but we must understand the “Zietgeist” (German), the spirit of the time that also prevailed Andras Peto alongside many others to think towards “holism”.
This time was characterized by “an explosive development of science and technology. The era of automation and cybernetics had begun. The rise of nuclear and quantum physics led to radical revolutionary change. Biology, chemistry and medicine also began to make rapid progress. Revolutionary elements emerged in political thinking. Socialism, Marxism and also anarchism grew into sizeable movements. In a similar manner to the changes in science, a search also began in arts and literature for new forms of expression. Expressionism at this time represented a reaction to the old, outdated bourgeois norms and the naive belief in progress. The catastrophes brought about by the First World War, the destruction of humanity, were only too evident and too recent. Expressionists (for example painters/artists Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Munch and Otto Dix) were trying to create a new vision of the human being, one determined by social responsibility and compassion for others. Creative art was seen as evolving out of immediate inner experiencing and emotional dynamics.” (R. Wulf 1996)

Franz Brentano’s student Christian von Ehrenfels (1859 – 1932) elucidated the Gestalt philosophy. The whole is more than its parts together. He published “Über die Gestaltqualitaten” already in 1890 and his followers like Max von Wertheimer (1880-1943),Wolfgang Köhler (1887-1967) and Kurt Koffka (1886-1941) expressed that the relation of things is the important. To take things apart is worsen the dynamic sense of the whole. Especially Köhler pointed out that learning is not a passive, mechanic but a dinamic and active process. Furthermore, ’admiting’ plays a very important role of learning. Gestalt philosophy is a phylosophy what coused directly a therapy, namely Gestalt theraphy. Fritz Perls (1893 – 1970) and followers, neuro-psychologists stressed the united, coherent work of the body and underlined that the personality is also coherent. They strongly believed that results of measuring parts of the psyche did not inform us about the whole verity about the measured person.

About Gestalt therapy I shell open a short post later because it seems to have a lot of similarity with CE.

Notes

More information
about Plessner: www.de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmuth_Plessner
about Buber: http://www.mythosandlogos.com/?buber.html
about Frankl: www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/wiktor_frankl
about Gestalt: http://www.gestalt.org/

and other sources:

Hári M. Összehasonlító Konduktív Pedagógia, MPANNI, Budapest 1998

Schaffhauser F. A nevelés alanyi feltételei, Telosz Kiadó, Budapest, 2000