Dacula offers hope for 
dedicated dads and moms 

Some parents search the world over for what’s best for their children. Such was the case with Doug and Karen Fowler when they discovered their daughter Natalie had cerebral palsy. From Canada to Florida, they tried different methods of treating her disorder. The one that worked best is an approach called conductive education, which teaches disabled children to adapt to their environment rather than expect the environment to adapt to them. But in the United States, conductive education schools are few and far between. Not wanting to move away, or take frequent long-distant trips, the Fowlers decided to start a school right here.

Karen, who took on most of the project, was a stay-at-home mom with no business background. But after extensive research into the program, she opened a conductive education center called A Step to Independence in 2005. Located on the campus of Hebron Baptist Church in Dacula, it is one of only 26 of its kind in the country.

Physician and educator Andras Peto developed this system in 1945 and set up the first center in Budapest, Hungary. Standards for conductors and conductive education centers are very high. Though such centers operate all over the world, not all are certified by the Peto Institute. In fact, of all the centers in the United States, the only one with certification is in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Well, let’s put that in past tense. The center that the Fowlers started right here in Dacula, Georgia is the second one to bear that distinction. Now people travel from all over the country to Dacula so their children can benefit from this program.

Ande Steuer brought her son Alex Copeland from Montgomery, Alabama for the first summer session.

“You go where it’s at, here or Michigan,” Steuer said. “It’s so different from anything we’ve ever done. In three days, even though we’re not in a home setting, last night Alex got into the tub alone for the first time.”

Chairman of the Board Corey Rewis, whose son attends ASTI, said the program is quite costly, and even with generous contributions like one from Jackson EMC’s Operation Roundup, parents still set up their own fundraisers. Few can afford full time enrollment. Most students either disenroll from public school for a month or attend a summer session. But after only three days, Alex said, “I’d like to come back again.”

Highly qualified ASTI conductors, Laszlo Kocsis, a native of Budapest, and Jessie Brown, a graduate of Aquinas College in Grand Rapids which has Peto certification, moved to Dacula on a Saturday and went to work at ASTI the next Monday. As I watched them interact with the kids, I’d have thought they’d all been together for years. Aiming to develop not just the body, but the entire person, Peto conductors instill in the kids a “can do” attitude. 

Fowler can attest to that. “I was told that Natalie would never walk, but now I’ve been told to tell my daughter to stop running in the halls.” 

062809

Archive