Conductive education is intensive therapy pioneered in Hungary

Heather Last, from Llangoedmor near Cardigan, is a finalist for an award, organised by Good Housekeeping magazine.

She has helped hundreds of children with motor disorders such as cerebral palsy.

Ms Last said she was a "little surprised" but "mostly pleased for the sake of the children."

She is founder and director of the PACE centre in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, which combines conductive education with more traditional speech and physiotherapy.

If she wins the �2,000 overall prize, the money will go to the centre, which was set up 14 years ago.

Heather has brought him on, he's feeding very well and is a totally different little boy Lorna Phelps, parent

Ms Last said: "The design of programmes at the PACE centre is based on the practises and principles of conductive education, which were devised by Professor Andras Peto in Hungary.

"It's a system of education that a child with motor difficulties has to learn how to move and function and that is really what my centre is based on - children actively involved in their own learning and learning how to move, how to do things for themselves, to eat, toilet themselves, write with a pencil etc.

"I really and totally believe in children's ability to learn. No matter how severe their physical handicap might be, that inside them they have dreams and aspirations just like any child."

Ms Last said children learned best from the more intensive programmes that conductive education offers.

"They don't learn from episodic, periodic input, which is what I did in the past as a therapist," she said.

"What they need is intensive, all day learning programmes. I had a group with two little boys, who first thing in the morning learned and practised how to dress themselves - one boy could hardly use his right hand but he was really trying to put on his trousers with his right hand".

Lorna Phelps' six-year-old son Jason has cerebral palsy and has been going to PACE since he was two.

"Before we found Heather, we were painted a very, very black picture - with Jason virtually a vegetable, unable to do anything," said Mrs Phelps.

"Heather has brought him on, he's feeding very well and is a totally different little boy - the stuff she gets them to do is amazing."

Ms Last said: "My rewards are the pictures I have in my mind, such as a boy I saw take his first four steps, who said 'I walk for Heather' - that's something I'll never forget."