The Italian Model Of The Inclusion. Dario Ianes. Edizioni Erickson. Italy

The Italian The Italian model for the model for the

inclusioninclusionof students with of students with special needs: special needs: some issuessome issues

Dario IanesCentro Studi Erickson

University of Bolzano - Italywww.darioianes.it

© 2005 Dario Ianes – www.erickson.it

Italian model for school inclusion of students with

special needs

Two major issues:1. knowledge and assessment of

students with disabilities

2. school inclusion strategies


1. Knowledge and assessment of students with disabilities

Two major needs:

a) need of an accurate assessment of the disabled student’s strengths and weaknesses

b) need to recognize and support children who, though not having a proper disability, present different special education needs


Need of an accurate assessment of the disabled student’s strengths

and weaknesses

functional diagnosis

– identifies and describes in detail the subject’s cognitive, educational and psychological functioning

– public healthcare service primarily responsible of this diagnosis involving school and family


Functional diagnosis: challenges

– different perspectives of health professionals on the one hand and school professionals on the other

– school expecting diagnoses which would miraculously enlighten teachers in their daily practice

– many teachers use this expectation as a pretext to avoid engaging and spending effort

– difficulty of making an adequate assessment

– staff shortages

– families are not involved in the evaluation process


Functional diagnosis: improvements

– a system specifically designed to comprehend, interpret, describe and share the person’s functioning

– implies and requires a comprehensive bio-psycho-social conceptualization of health and functioning

– makes functional diagnosis more useful and directly relevant to

school inclusion processes

introduction of OMS ICF – International Classification of Functioning, Disability and

Health (2002)


– implies and requires a comprehensive evaluation involving more observers (health professionals, teachers, families)

– provides basis to the development of the individualized educational plan into a life project, in a life-long learning perspective looking to professional and social inclusion

– emphasis on the person’s social participation in a range of roles

ICF – International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health


ICF impact on school programs designing

Three main focuses of attention:

1. the child’s basic need to develop competence in the ICF area of ‘personal activities’ (learning, communication, interactions, autonomy)

2. the need to design individualized objectives considering the child’s social participation to shared activities in an active and significant manner (identifying curricular goals which are appropriate with respect to the child’s abilities and deficits and to the specific regular instruction courses)


ICF impact on school programs designing

3. the need of a wide and far-sighted perspective on the pupil’s life project, defining significant objectives in the areas of adult competence (economic roles, pre-working skills, emotional and sexual life, etc.) that are deeply interwoven with objectives related to the development of adult identity (motivation, goals, self-efficacy, self-esteem, etc.)


Need to recognize and support children who, though not having a proper disability, present different

special education needs

– a fact slowly recognized by law-making and rule-making, both at the Department for Education level and the local government level

growing awareness about the presence, along with a percentage of children with disabilities of about the 2-3% of school population, of another 15-20% of children with different learning challenges and disorders


– pupils with special education needs – who do not get officially recognized by the school system as having learning difficulties – are not entitled to the same rights of inclusion and individualized supports (special education teacher)

– screening and assessment methods, based on the ICF model and content, are currently being tested in Italy

– unifying concept of ‘learning and educational functioning’, irrespective of various aetiologies or challenge being temporary or permanent


2. School inclusion strategies

Several challenges:

– reduced assets allocated to school in the national budget laws

– decisions made by local educational authorities on number of special education teachers

– debate on instructional and methological strategies for inclusion

– families’ perspective

– special education teacher still regarded as the most important resource for inclusion, but often ineffective (lack of an appropriate training; inadequate management by school and local authorities) © 2005 Dario Ianes – www.erickson.it

Five areas for developing effective inclusion strategies:

1. the link between individualized programming and the class curriculum

2. classmates and schoolmates involvement

3. integrating behavioural strategies into the regular learning activities and educational relationships

4. metacognitive teaching and learning

5. information communication technology

Common denominator is ‘special normality’ encompassing the advantages of both specific strategies and comfortable normality © 2005 Dario Ianes – www.erickson.it

First area: Link between individualized programming and the

class curriculum

– are appropriate to the disabled child

– are within his/her zone of proximal development

– make significant his/her being and participating with peers to classroom activities

need to define objectives, in the different subjects and fields of competence, that:


Flow-chart for adapting curriculum objectives to individual needs

five levels of adaptation

1st changing the input/output codes

2nd changing the teaching/learning contexts

3rd changing the content – simplification

4th changing the content – identifying basics

5th participating to the task culture© 2005 Dario Ianes – www.erickson.it

1st level of adaptationchanging the input/output codes

Access to tasks and contents is made easier by adapting the codes

E.g. typewriting instead of handwriting; listening to a text recorded on a tape instead of reading it


2nd level of adaptationchanging the teaching/learning

contexts Access to tasks and contents is made easier by adapting/enriching the teaching/learning contexts, time, and space

E.g. teaching/learning spelling using a motivating instructional software instead of traditional pencil and paper materials; teaching/learning arithmetical facts by role-playing shopkeeper-

customer interactions


3rd level of adaptationchanging the content –

simplification

Access to tasks and contents is made easier by their simplification

E.g. providing short and explicit texts to read; allowing to use a calculator in mathematical problem-solving


4th level of adaptation changing the content – identifying

basics

Access to tasks and contents is made easier by identifying and presenting their basics

E.g. in history class, the child may learn that events depend on interrelated causes by exploring his/her own personal life


5th level of adaptation participating to the task culture

Opportunities are sought in order to involve the child in the classroom activities, was it even only – so to speak – as an observer


Second area: peer involvement

– importance of educating all children to accepting and valuing individual differences to develop a supporting community

– keeping a far-sighted perspective on the disabled child’s adult life, to start with children to build a supporting social network of adult people

need to engage classmates and schoolmates in inclusion process


– cooperative learning methods implemented with methodological awareness: preparatory work creating a climate and networks of sharing, mutual help, mutual support, closeness and prosociality

– tutoring, both within the classroom and outside of it

need to engage classmates and schoolmates in inclusion process


A cooperative group model based on Morin’s idea of ‘well-framed mind’

EXPLORER

SAGE

STRATEGIST

CRITIC Metacognitive

axis

Cog

nit

ive

axis



Explorer

Tasks: gathers ideas provided by the group through a brainstorming; defines problems; encourages new directions of research

Strategist

Tasks: analyzes characters; finds information; explains facts; plans solutions and anticipates consequences



Critic

Tasks: reviews critically the explorer’s and the strategist’s hypotheses; distinguishes facts from opinions; challenges the degree of certainty of information; evaluates suggestions, anticipations, and products

Sage

Tasks: helps the group in respecting roles; examines possible causes of the group’s failure and provides

suggestions; encourages self-reflection and mediates conflicts creatively


Third area: introducing specific techniques in the regular classroom

– applied behavior analysis strategies

– metacognitive teaching strategies

– psychoeducational techniques providing benefits to all pupils (strong structuring for self-regulation; behaviour modification strategies to enhance motivation through positive reinforcement)

– demanded by an increasing number of teachers, professionals, scholars, family

associations

– request for special normality

special tools become normal


Fourth area: metacognitive instruction for children with special

education needs

– need of cooperation between research and practice

– need of operative and scientifically-based tools and materials

– teaching curricula developed by Padua group

support to cognitive, metacognitive and academic skills


Fifth area: information communication technology

– strongly supported by government and business interests in the hardware field

– instructional software specifically designed for learners with special education needs and disabilities are developed

– traditional Italian creativity beginning to give its best (software for psycho-educational intervention on theory of mind deficits typical of the autistic spectrum disorders)


Conclusions

– 35 years of full school inclusion experience: definitely and most largely positive balance

– inclusion considered as a critical enhancement of the school for all children

– challenges: building a strong basis of empirical data, implementing the ICF model on a large scale, increase special normality


THANK YOU!


The Italian Model Of The Inclusion. Dario Ianes. Edizioni Erickson. Italy

Education

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