Kapronczay Károly szerk.: Orvostörténeti Közlemények 200-201. (Budapest, 2007)

TANULMÁNYOK — ARTICLES - FORRAI, Judit: History of a Special Healing Method for Motor-disordered Children: Conductive Education - A mozgásszervi betegségben szenvedő gyermekek egyik sajátos gyógymódja, a konduktív nevelés története

aged to get close to him. He could be fascinating or quite blood-curdling. He would make penetrating pronouncements about others immediately upon meeting them ". Without Pető Everybody was very shocked that the "great father of conductive education" had departed from us. The work of patients and their relatives and the work of students starting college continued. The challenge of living up to the results previously achieved was a millstone around Mária Hári's and the others' necks. With enormous energy they faced the problems both inside and outside the Institute, and they carried on the Petö-heritage and improved the foreign image of the Institute. By the end of its long-draw-out construction in 1985 the new Institute cost 280 million HUF. It was named after Pető. There were in-patient wards for 300 patients and outpatient wards as well. At the same time the reconstruction of the Villányi street Institute started, which was to be handed over in its final form only in 1998. There the patients' education takes place in a residential form and it also accommodates the conductor candidates. The previously promised countrywide conductive education network did not develop according to the original plans. The Institute laid a lot of emphasis on its international relationships. It accepted experts and students from abroad. The two most important contacts were the English and the Japanese, but the whole world has become caught up (Israel, New Zealand, Germany, Austria, USA and so on). We can read about the Institute in a report from 1986 written by the Ministry of Health: "Considering that the Ministry of Health regards that the Pető Institute belongs to the Ministry of Culture and Education only from the point of view of the training, it therefore feels responsibility for the rehabilitation of motor-disabled children and tries to help with all kinds of improvement. The reticence of the Institute's director raise certain inconveniences which can be explained on one hand by the tribulations of the school-founding predecessor, András Pető, and on the other hand medical society's aversion to conductive education. Nevertheless as the work of conductors and remarkable devotion becomes more widely known, the acknowledgement of and need for the Institute also grows greater and greater. "

71 In 1986 the highest political leaders, including János Kádár

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, were informed about the operational conditions of the Institute and the expansion of its activities:

73 1. It can be ascertained that the new situation of the Institute on Kútvölgyi Road and the renovation of the old premises provide for the requirements in the capital and the training of the so-called conductors. There is a need to establish a few new wards on the capital's Pest side as well. The City Council has promised to hand over a few crèches, the take-over can be realised in 1987. 70 Vekerdy, Tamás: O.e. 17-52. 71 Medve, László: Report on the circumstances of the Pető Institute. Budapest, 16th June, 1986. 6. 72 János Kádár (1912-1989) Minister of Home Affairs (1948-1950), Prime Minister (1956), Minister of State (1958-1961), Prime Minister (1961-1965), Secretary-general of the Central Committee (1965-1988) 73 Lénárd Pál's notes to János Kádár PL/310-2/1986