Dr. James Klausner: Conductive Education

September 12th, 2012
By Danielle Torrent
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James Klausner wasn’t looking for an additional career when he decided to start a rehabilitation program for kids with Cerebral Palsy. He already was quite busy with his day job as a lecturer at University of Florida and a physicist. It would be enough to nominate him for the Spirit of Gainesville award for his work as a professor. But he wanted to help kids in Gainesville, kids just like his son, who passed away at age six. He wanted to make them mobile, more independent, educated and accomplished. Hopefully, he would help them walk. In 2006 he started The Gainesville Conductive Education Academy. With a program modeled after the world famous Peto method, James Klausner took on a second day job without pay. He never turned a child away and as the head of The Jordan Klausner Foundation created in his son’s memory he tried with all his might to balance his need to help the local community with ever limiting funding to keep the facility running. Conductive Education is a method very little known in America, but quite popular worldwide, especially in the 1980′s. It doesn’t enjoy the financial support of insurance or the recognition of the US medical community. Conductive Education was developed in Hungary in the 1940′s. The theory behind was that people with neuromuscular disabilities can learn and improve through routines, movement and repetition. James wanted for the parents in Gainesville to have it as an option, to have the information and then make choices. He created an Academy that was free for most, affordable for the rest and he persuaded a Hungarian conductor, Kata to join his cause.

Dr. James Klausner

25 years ago I was just like the kids James Klausner has helped in Gainesville. I know what it did for me. I know what it’s like to fight with limitations of your own body only to raise above it and get better. Today I’m an attorney. Cerebral Palsy never goes away, of course I can see, but you can limit the way it affects you. That’s what James Klausner tried to do, against the odds, by bringing the approach that helped countless kids to Gainesville. To give them the gift of mobility. And also to start the discussion about the education and therapy choices in America and how we view Cerebral Palsy today. He didn’t make CE widespread, but he got his foot through the door.

This is our last chance to honor Dr Klausner’s efforts. After years of struggles the school has shut down this year. I know it was not an easy decision for him. It’s not that Cerebral Palsy is no longer a concern in Gainesville, but the logistics, the finances, the economic crisis we all live in, finally became too much for this one person, who tried to make a difference. He sacrificed a lot of personal time, energy and money. He thought of others first.

Last year I was nominated for the Spirit of Gainesville award, for my work with the school. But James is the true champion of Conductive Education. I’m just a success story. He has inspired me to help others like me. At the school little miracles happened daily. Yet, the media mostly ignored him. This is our chance to correct it. The school has closed but his efforts were not a failure. Not to his students, his other students, those who now walk, speak and move. Not to me, as I build by career around disability law issues and all the others he has touched. The school has closed, but the Foundation will continue, James assured me. For Jordan and for other kids in Gainesville.

Second Nomination

By day, James Klausner plays the role of what many people would call a rocket scientist. A professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of Florida, his research in thermal fluid sciences has landed him positions on panels for NASA and the National Science Foundation, and resulted in numerous awards and recognitions for his theoretical and experimental work on heat flow transfer. But the rest of the time, Klausner is focused on improving the lives of children with neuromuscular disabilities in Gainesville and surrounding areas.

In 1999, he established the Jordan Klausner Foundation in memory of his son, Jordan, who was afflicted with cerebral palsy. The foundation is a 501c3 nonprofit run primarily by volunteers that offers a range of services to the disabled community in North Central Florida, including educational opportunities for children, advocacy and legal services. It is mainly supported by parents and relies on grants, donations and McKay scholarships for funding. In 2006, Klausner opened the Gainesville Conductive Education Academy, a Florida charter school that combines rehabilitation and education to help children become more functional and independent. The key to Conductive Education is having children follow carefully designed scripts of exercises to make them stand, move and walk with the use of specially designed furniture that also serve as rehabilitation tools. The facility applies the therapy method developed in Hungary in the 1940s by Andras Peto. Over the decades, Peto’s Institute in Budapest has become a popular destination for Cerebral Palsy parents from all around the world, with many witnessing great progress in their children’s walking, talking and other functionality skills. The Gainesville Conductive Education Academy’s instructor, Katalin Szcoboda, received training for this method in Hungary. The school’s goal – unlike the outcome of many public schools, which results in disabled children becoming dependent on wheelchairs and classroom aides – is for children to become as independent and as functional as they can be. The Jordan Klausner Foundation’s motto states: “Helping special children help themselves.” The school operates year-round, providing otherwise unavailable educational options for North Central Florida’s population of children with disabilities and their families, with the ultimate goal of incorporating students into the public school system. Students have commuted from Orlando and as far north as Georgia to participate in the academy’s summer camp, as there are no other Conductive Education facilities available in the area.

Cerebral Palsy is an umbrella term for a number of neuro-motor disorders involving brain injury at birth or during pregnancy. An estimated two-to-three live births per thousand are diagnosed with the condition, with some studies suggesting raised rates in recent years. It affects children in all countries and all social groups. The condition mostly affects walking, control over limbs, balance and speech and in most cases, renders the body spastic. James Klauser has devoted an immeasurable amount of time and personal sacrifice to get the foundation and school off the ground, organizing fundraising events, applying for Federal grants and ensuring the students have a safe, welcoming facility to attend. He is committed to helping kids in the community and building a sustainable organization that will be able to help generations of families. For more information, please visit www.jordanklausnerfoundation.org.

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Shriners help teen with Cerebral Palsy achieve dreams

August 1st, 2012

From http://www.dailyrepublic.com/

Isac Huddleston, 18, accomplished something recently that he and his family never thought possible: He walked to receive his high school diploma.

Huddleston has lived with spastic cerebral palsy his whole life. As long as he can remember, he’s walked with crutches and worn casts. Doctors told him he probably would never walk on his own, he said.

But with physical therapy, surgery and support, he handed his crutches to his friends, bound and determined to walk without them for such a monumental occasion.

“My friends told me to do my pimp walk and get my diploma,” he said, laughing.

His mother, Barbara Huddleston, cried while watching him from the stands at Rodriguez High School.

“It wasn’t the fact that he got his diploma,” she said. “It was the fact that he was walking.”

The Huddlestons said he would never have made such progress without the help and support of the local Montezuma Shriners and the Sacramento Shriners Hospital for Children.

Isac Huddleston was born prematurely, and at 3 pounds, 6 ounces, fit in the palm of his mother’s hand. As he grew up, Barbara Huddleston noticed he wasn’t developing normally.

“He didn’t sit up. . . . He’d cruise along the wall,” she said. “We really became concerned.”

His mother took him to the doctor to get diagnosed, but initially, they were left with few answers. When she finally received the news he had cerebral palsy, she was devastated.

“It was almost better not knowing,” she said.

Barbara Huddleston and her husband both had jobs and health insurance, but faced looming health care costs and struggled transporting their son to and from Sacramento for surgery.

That’s when Isac Huddleston’s grandfather, James Huddleston, directed them to the local Montezuma Shriners and the Shriners Hospital in Sacramento.

James Huddleston, a Shriner master himself, suggested they seek help through sponsors at the Montezuma Shriners.

Barbara Huddleston never thought that the group would sponsor her son because they had health insurance. To her surprise, they not only sponsored her son with free transportation to and from the hospital, but they significantly helped with the medical costs as well.

Ken Wright, ambassador and past president of the Montezuma Shriners, said that their organization is made up of dedicated volunteers. The Shriners, he said, don’t turn any child away, whether they have health insurance or not.

“Shriner loves taking care of kids,” he said. “We don’t want to see kids in wheelchairs and crutches if they can be helped.”

The enormous financial support from the Shriners was matched at the Shriner Children’s Hospital with personal and thorough treatment by its medical staff, Barbara Huddleston said.

Growing with cerebral palsy was difficult for Isac Huddleston, but he said he had some great experiences through the care he received at the Shriners hospital.

“There’s an uplifting spirit there,” Barbara Huddleston said. “They’re focused on making a good experience.”

One of Isac Huddleston’s favorite memories at the hospital was the East-West Shrine football game, where he hung out and played wheelchair sports with NFL players such as Jerry Rice.

Isac Huddleston proudly displays his Shrine Game memorabilia, including a football signed by former 49ers quarterback Ken Dorsey, in a case in his room.

His family has seen his condition improve by leaps and bounds over the years. Part of that improvement is thanks to the Shriners hospital, Barbara Huddleston said, and the other came from her son’s attitude.

“When I was younger kids asked ‘What’s wrong with you?,’ ” he said. “I said ‘There’s nothing wrong with me, I have cerebral palsy.’ ”

His mother said, “Rather than hide it, it’s been an educational experience for him.”

Isac Huddleston will head to University of Reno Nevada in the fall, where he will study environmental science. He said he would like to work with people with prosthetics and believes his experiences will allow him to help others.

As he heads to college, his mother said she is in of awe how far he’s come.

“Doctors had not expected his improvement to be as succesful as it was,” she said.

Without the support from the Montezuma Shriners, she said, she doesn’t believe it would have been possible.

“The Shriner support has come full circle,” she said. “We never know where he’ll go in life. That’s why we want to say thank you.”

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