Serenella Besio

• Professor (Full) at University of Bergamo

In recent decades important changes in the disability area occurred, both at regulatory-political and socio-cultural level, urging to rethink the Life Project of persons with disabilities (PwD) from a lifelong and life wide perspective. From the Nineties, in Italy this change has been introduced by a policy agenda introducing the construct of indiv...

The two “GioDi – Gioco per la Disabilità [Play for disability]” projects aimed at investigating the role of contextual factors, as toys and adult play partners, in supporting play for the sake of play for children with physical and/or intellectual disabilities. To this purpose, the children’s disposition to play was measured through the construct o...

Il TUET (Toys & games Usability Evaluation Tool) è uno strumento osservativo per valutare i materiali di gioco prendendo in considerazione le caratteristiche fisiche che sono rilevanti per bambini con menomazione uditiva, visiva o motoria agli arti superiori.

The article presents some reflections on Assessment for Learning, an approach to evaluation that aims at definitively overcoming the summative modality typical of standardized assessments and at encouraging partnership between student and teacher within the teaching and learning process. Subsequently, it deepens the Dynamic Assessment approach, a v...

Purpose: Play is a right for every child and has a key role in child development. Play can be analyzed according to the construct of playfulness, which is the child’s disposition to play. Children with cerebral palsy (CP) show difficulties in play and can also experience lower playfulness scores when compared to matched typically developing childre...

The present systematic review investigates studies carried out in the period 2007-2017, focusing on the use of technologies for augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) with the aim of improving the communication processes of persons (0-18 years) with complex communication needs related to motor impairments. Specifically, work develops an a...

You can download the book for free here: https://www.degruyter.com/viewbooktoc/product/506822

La L. n. 170/2010, ha fatto chiarezza intorno alle caratteristiche dei DSA e agli interventi che la scuola deve approntare per accogliere gli alunni che presentano queste difficoltà. Le Linee Guida del 2013 hanno richiesto alle Regioni di coordinare la realizzazione di prassi per l'identificazione precoce. Dopo una rassegna sul percorso legislativo...

Download the book for free: https://www.degruyter.com/viewbooktoc/product/481126 This book is the result of the first two-year work of Working Group 1 of the network "LUDI - Play for children with disabilities". LUDI is an Action (2014-2018) financed by COST; it is a multidisciplinary network of more than 30 countries and almost 100 researchers and...

We proposed activities with a set of robotic toys available on the market to children with physical impairments. The toys were selected to be representative of different types of offer, with the aim to evaluate the possibility to adopt them as tools to enable play activity in children with this type of impairments. From the analysis of the interact...

Although play is recognized as the main drive for the child's physical, cognitive and social development, it is first of all a unique source of pleasure, fun and recreation. Playfulness, the individual intrinsic involvement in play has been described as a measurable characteristic of these aspects of play. Play and playfulness can be limited in chi...

The project GioDi (Gioco per la Disabilità - Play for Children with Disabilities) exploited the idea of experimenting five robots of the mainstream market with seven children with severe PI, to verify the playfulness of these tools and suggestions for further studies in the field of play for children with disabilities. The robots were not easily ac...

This paper presents LUDI, an interdisciplinary network of research centred on the topic of play for children with disabilities. The primary aim of the network is to ensure the theme is given the widest recognition as an independent field of research and intervention. Currently, the network comprises over 80 researchers and practitioners from 27 Eur...

LUDI network aims at the creation of a novel and autonomous field of research and intervention on play for children with disabilities. Play for disabilities is the object of a fragmented set of studies and it has given rise, in different countries and at different times, to niche projects (i.e. social robotics for autistic children, adapted toys fo...

Play is the primary way for children to acquire cognitive, social and relational skills. However, children with disabilities risk to be deprived of their freedom and their right to play in spite of the efforts made by adults in the familiar, educational and rehabilitation context. This work investigates the adults' role in letting children with Cer...

Within the co-funded European pr4oject IROMEC (IST-FP6-045356), aiming at developing and experimenting an innovative robotic toy to be used in play intervention addressed to children with motor-based, cognitive and developmental disabilities, specific guidelines for using robots in educational and rehabilitation environments have been developed. Th...

In this article the authors analyse the critical factors concerning accessibility of the videogame Buzz! TM Junior Monster Rumble for the Playstation console. The objective of the study is to propose a series of modifications that, on the one hand, do not change the graphic and playability features of the game and, on the other, expand the target o...

The IROMEC (Interactive RObotic social MEdiators as Companions) is a EU funded research project designed for children who because of a disability are unable to play, is to create an interactive robotic system that can sustain development of ludic activities The paper presents the results of the experimentations earned out with the first prototype o...

This paper, from the description of the research activities of the ongoing European project IROMEC, discusses the potential role of the brand new version Children and Youth of ICF (International Classification of Functioning and Disability) as an useful resource in the design development and outcomes evaluation of robotic toys used as play mediator...

Although researches, guidelines and laws have been elaborated during the last years about the accessibility of software, many educational products on the Italian market are still difficult or impossible to be used by students with disabilities. An evaluation grid, designed from the end-user’s point of view, has been used with 70 educational softwar...

Abstract In this paper the authors present the initial results of the study on Critical Factors involved with play for children with disabilities. The European project IROMEC (Interactive Robotic Social Mediators as Companions IST-2005-2.6.1), that began in November 2006, will investigate how robotic toys can become social mediators, encouraging ch...

The results are presented of the SIVA research project "Technical Aids and Methodologies to facilitate Play by Children with Motor Impairments" (2000–2003). The project has been launched with the scope of improving learning of children with motor impairment by letting them directly interact with their environment through play. For the 6 children be...

Awareness and knowledge of Assistive Technology (AT) are key factors in supporting empowerment of people with disabilities. They also greatly contribute to the success of AT solutions. Based on the findings of the EUSTAT study--an international project within the Telematics Application Programme of the European Commission--this paper offers a synth...

Purpose: The paper presents the main outline of a new research project carried out by the SIVA research team concerning the development of methodologies to select and use assistive technology to allow children with motor disabilities to play with toys. Conclusion: Giving them the same opportunities to play as their peers without disabilities can...

In discussing the counseling process in assistive technology choice, this chapter presents a reflection following the systemic approach (D. B. Hershenson, 1998; L. Hoffman, 1981; M. Malagoli Togliatti and U. Telfener, 1983). Through this reflection, the author examines the contribution that psychological thought may offer to the assistive technolog...

Ripercorrendo il difficile cammino dell'integrazione scolastica del disabile e analizzando la sua diversa attuazione in Europa

La conoscenza, da parte dell'utente, delle tecnologie di ausilio og gi disponibili e la c onsapevolezza del l oro ruolo nel processo d i riabilitazione e d'integrazione sociale rappresentano un importante fattore di empowerment della persona c on disabilità. La motivazione e la partecipazione a ttiva nella scelta dell'ausilio spesso costituiscono u...

One of the basic aspects that determines the success or failure in the use of assistive technologies on the part of people with disabilities is constituted by the ability that provide a disabled person with the technology that corresponds effectively to his needs and to his capabilities, thus to interpret correctly the problems and to find the righ...