Conductive education (CE) in the treatment of children with cerebral palsy (CP), it is claimed, promotes independent motor functioning as well as having a positive effect on the development of a number of other skills. Such claims have excited the media, parents and professionals alike to campaign for the introduction of CE into the healthcare system. An appraisal of the (few) available studies evaluating CE, however, failed to produce empirical support for such claims. Conductive education would not seem to be any more effective than traditional methods. Where advantageous results in favour of CE have been reported, they can probably be attributed to the very intensive training involved and the strict criteria used for selecting particular CP children for this method. Furthermore, given that CE is also very expensive when compared with traditional methods, it would seem much more logical (and more economical) to invest money and resources into improving existing intervention methods.

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