Promoting social inclusion in sporting contexts: the different abilities motor program.

Abstract

Physical actions are a complex and articulated set of functional processes for the initiation, monitoring and execution of non-automatic, but adaptive and directed behaviors for a purpose. The studies carried out in the field of neuroscience, motor science and the consequent didactic applications have highlighted the need to initiate processes of design and organization of content, the organizational methods and methodologies in physical education and in the introduction to sport, to integrate and modulate factors inherent in the inclusive quantity and promote adaptive and preventive practices to reach more and more people with different needs. For disabled people, in fact, the movement is the element thanks to which the body can find a condition of balance and coping with the stress caused by the chronic condition. This is demonstrated by the growing interest that the issue has aroused in recent decades, with the enactment of supranational regulatory arrangements that recall the right of all minors, without distinction, to an education capable of involving in a harmonious way every dimension that constitutes the human being, including the education of the body; stressing the essential nature of mainstreaming in physical education and sports practices. National and supranational policies, through the NRRP, underline how physical education plays a privileged role in countering the phenomena of exclusion and marginalization, in the period between childhood and adolescence, especially for people with disabilities. In this perspective, the present contribution is dedicated to the description of the DAMP - Different Abilities Motor Program and to the results of the first experience of its application. The three-year research course, which took place in 2019-2021, involved 58 disabled athletes and had the purpose of monitoring the creation and application of a suitable motor program to enhance the real skills of students with the identification of strengths and critical areas.