Herald Sun, Friday, May 8, 2009 MARGARET SASSÉ Obituaries
Putting kids on path to learning
CHILD DEVELOPMENT SPECIALIST
Born: February 13, 1929
Died: May 2, 2009
MARGARET Sassé was a leading international authority on childhood development, specialising in reading difficulties. After founding A New Start for Under Achievers (for children with reading difficulties) she realised prevention was better than cure and created GymbaROO. She envisaged GymbaROO as a way of teaching the parents of children aged under five the natural physiological development stages they needed to pass through to reach their reading and learning potential at school. Margaret believed modern lifestyles inhibited many children from progressing naturally through these stages, putting their futures at risk. She conducted considerable research, working closely with therapists, optometrists, pediatricians, allergists and nutritionists.
Her research into helping children develop properly, enabling them to read and learn when they start school never ceased, the results of which are embedded in her legacy.
She produced a DVD series The Importance of Being an Infant One, Two, Three, and Four (1993-2007), and three books If Only We Had Known(1979), Tomorrow’s Child (2002) and Smart Start (2009).
The programs she evolved over 27 years with GymbaROO, for no salary or director’s fee, provided parental education and specific early childhood physiological development activities. GymbaROO, a franchised business, opened in Kew in 1983. There are now 80 centres through Australia, 20 in China, four in Europe and one in the US.
Margaret, 80, died in an Adelaide hospital of complications after heart surgery.
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