The Alexandra Disability Movement is being used in the preparatory phase for the implementation of the Scotson Technique for children with cerebral palsy.
Already a remarkable blind woman, Angie Mpjana, works as a co-ordinator at the disability movement and she has proved her ability to be an instructor to parents of children who suffer from cerebral palsy. She is being assisted by a programme of the Scotson Technique.
The technique is the brain child of UK mother, Linda Scotson, who has a son with cerebral palsy. Her determination to find a better future for her son, led her through years of research, culminating in the completion of a PhD thesis at the University College London.
Linda demonstrated that the barrier to more normal development in cerebral palsy children was not only the condition of the child’s brain but the abnormal development of the child’s breathing such as respiratory circulatory system which is also affected as a consequence of the brain injury.
Linda’s research led her to develop a unique kind of massage which via tests by computerised respiratory plethysmography was shown to produce a stronger better co-ordinated breathing pattern in every cerebral palsy child studied.
Linda founded a UK charity called “Advance” to teach parents how to apply the massage which is now called the Scotson Technique. A two-year statistical study of the Scotson Technique by Bradford University showed that the children’s trunkal structure moved significantly closer to normal after the Scotson Technique.
In September 2003, Linda was invited to South Africa by parents of children with disabilities and the SA Institute for the Scotson Technique was formed a year later. Linda is proposing to begin training parents of children at the Alexandra Disability Movement and to liaise with Mpjana to identify the first team of blind women ready to be trained as educators.
