INCLUSIVE SPORT EDUCATION

The “Inclusive Sport Education” project stems from the idea that physical activity and sport can contribute to social inclusion and well-being of the disabled person. The school is the context in which to operate, because it is the school that can address the child with disabilities towards sport and especially towards the knowledge of the physical, psychological and relational benefits. By cooperating, sport and school steer the whole person, not limiting the intervention to only the cognitive side, but also valuing other functions, such as emotional, social, relational and motor side. The body through movement provides a bridge between us and others and marks the primary relationship that evolves and accompanies man at different stages of growth. This project finds its theoretical justification in the psychomotor approach that defines the movement as a viable educational opportunity thanks to the huge amount of different stimulus situations that it proposes. Objective of the research is to see if the planning of motor activity and a careful analysis of the problems can facilitate the integration of a differently abled person in the school and in the class. In particular, sport will act as a potential source of improvement in the perceptive development of the bodily self, the self in relation to others, self-awareness and self-esteem. The project involved the participation of the fourth Primary class, consisting of thirteen students. Among them, there is a pupil affected by Bethlem myopathy with girdle muscular deficit which, as is well known, involves a general hypotonia, a reduction of movements, rigid mental patterns, low self-esteem and limited perception of the bodily self. It is precisely on these issues that we focused our attention. In order to study these components, besides observation grids and evaluation boards, the questionnaire played a functional importance. This project adopted the PSDQ questionnaire drawn up by Marsh et al. Finally, for the examination of the social and integrative aspects, video analysis was an important tool to assess the behavior of subjects in the different areas of interaction. The results of questionnaires administered at the beginning and the end of the project showed a real improvement of the students in the different subscales purposely considered by PSDQ. Video analysis strengthened the entire process by providing a positive visual feedback allowing subjects to the consolidation of existing skills and the improvement of general awareness andself-esteem. The results have certainly confirmed the initial hypothesis of this project: physical activity and sport have positively contributed to the social integration and overall well-being of a disabled person within the school context