András Pető (11 September 1893 in

Szombathely Szombathely (; german: Steinamanger, ; see also other alternative names) is the 10th largest city in Hungary. It is the administrative centre of Vas county in the west of the country, located near the border with Austria. Szombathely lies by t ...

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...

– 11 September 1967 in

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

, Hungary) was a practitioner of

physical rehabilitation Physical therapy (PT), also known as physiotherapy, is one of the allied health professions. It is provided by physical therapists who promote, maintain, or restore health through physical examination, diagnosis, management, prognosis, patien ...

whose work provided the foundation for

conductive education Conductive Education (CE) is an educational system, based on the work of Hungarian Professor András Pető, that has been specifically developed for children and adults who have motor disorders of neurological origin such as cerebral palsy. CE i ...

Early life and career

András Pető was born in 1893 in Szombathely, Hungary, as an elder of three sons. His father fell ill in 1907 with

Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms becom ...

, which compelled András to support the family financially. He worked as a tutor and a newspaper editor. After graduation, he studied from 1911 in Vienna. Originally he to be a journalist, but in Vienna decided to study medicine. During his studies he met Jacob L. Moreno, doctor, playwright and psychotherapist, with whom he formed a lifelong friendship - and also came into contact with the various psychological schools of Vienna centered around Freud, Adler and Frankl. Between 1930 and 1938, Pető published many literary, philosophical and medical works. He was the editor-in-chief of the periodical ''Biologische Heilkunst'' (''Biological Healing'') and was better known as a journalist than a physician. The forced incorporation of

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

into

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

March 1938 made life difficult and dangerous for Jews, so he moved to Paris where he stayed briefly and worked as a journalist, then he returned to Hungary. Very little is known about Pető's life during the time of World War II but it is assumed that he was in hiding in Budapest during the German occupation. His mother was killed in Auschwitz.

Institute

His institute, the National Institute of Motor Therapy, officially opened in 1952. Although nominally under the Ministry of Health, instead of following the medical model of providing therapies, Pető created a framework for an educational model, in which children with disabilities could have an education that met their particular physical and intellectual needs. Accordingly, in the early 1960s his institute moved into the Ministry of Education.

Conductive education

Conductive education (CE) entered the wider public consciousness in the mid-1980s, as a result of two television documentaries —"Standing Up For Joe" (1986), and "To Hungary with Love" (1987)."Maria Hari"
2001 obituary at The Guardian In recent years, CE has gained more and more acceptance in the education of children with motor disorders. While developed first for children who had

cerebral palsy Cerebral palsy (CP) is a group of movement disorders that appear in early childhood. Signs and symptoms vary among people and over time, but include poor coordination, stiff muscles, weak muscles, and tremors. There may be problems with sens ...

or brain injury, it has also been used with adults with

, multiple sclerosis and after- stroke conditions.

References

External links

Magyar Életrajzi Lexikon
{{DEFAULTSORT:Peto, Andras 1893 births 1967 deaths Hungarian educators