MAES Therapy

The MAES therapy approach was developed by Jean-Pierre Maes following more than 30 years of experience working within the field of cerebral palsy (CP) and similar neurodevelopmental conditions.

MAES Therapy stand for Movement Analysis & Education Strategies. The MAES approach supports babies and children of all ages where a neurological problem prevents them from following a normal course of development.

MAES Therapy is a holistic approach that analyses the child’s movements and the psychology behind the child’s movements. The therapy focusses on understanding how the child’s brain is coordinating the body and what it means, instead of focusing solely on the child’s physical and secondary symptoms. The approach looks from the child’s perspective and how they experience, understand, and interact with the world around them.

Children with neurodevelopmental conditions take a different path of development due to the brain dysfunction which leads to different and more limited learning experiences. MAES Therapy aims at providing opportunities for the child to explore, learn and develop new skills within a safe environment which they are very unlikely to develop on their own.

The child often choses the easiest solution to get an immediate result, which may help in the short-term, but results in poor quality and limited variety of movement which has a negative impact on long-term development. These ‘compensation strategies’ become established and form the basis of ‘atypical’ movement. Therefore, MAES Therapy does not focus on the short-term achievement of tasks. Instead, MAES focuses on creating a foundation to reduce the ‘atypical’ development in the long term and open the possibilities for different and better outcomes.

The therapy involves specific, highly skilled handling to guide movement, cognition and play in order to take the child on a path of learning new skills and supporting them to reach their full potential.