L’inclusione degli studenti con disabilità nella formazione universitaria a 25 anni dalla Dichiarazione di Salamanca: overview e highlights

The Salamanca Statement inaugurated a period of rights which aimed to promote inclusion at all levels of education, including higher education, considered strategic in the preparation of peoplewith disabilities for adult life.This article aims to provide an overview of the principal steps which, from 1994 up to the present day, have marked the gradual process of the opening up of the post-secondary institutions to disability, in order to critically highlight the progress and the challenges of a process in act. The paper, based on a review of the international and national literature, is organized into two periods (with the UN Convention as a watershed). From the universities’ initial concern to guarantee equality of access to students with disabilities by removing architectural barriers and offering services, we move to a subsequent phase in which new complex trends emerge which have innovative and inclusive potential. Among these we find the quality of the teaching; the monitoring of academic careers and the transition to the labour market; the evolution of the Disability Services from campus support centres to campus resource centres; staff training; and the more active participation of students. There is an open challenge to continue to gather evidence and reframe these issues, because improving the quality of academic experiences can guarantee better future lives for students

Children at birth, children growing up. Integration between healthcare and family educational care

AbstractThis research is based on the assumption that in order to improve the quality of life of children with major health problems in the early stage of their life, especially in the case of disability, it is necessary to ensure the continuity and proper two-way integration of early childhood educational planning and health care, both provided by the adults involved, that is parents and professionals. Therefore, we tried to explore and piece together the complex set of family support experiences, both in the process of forming an attachment and affiliation to the newborn and in the construction of a common evolutionary history, aimed at the well-being of the entire family unit. We considered the context and actors of the first few days and months in the lives of children with a difficult life course, in a city of Northern Italy. By means of qualitative investigation, we carried out observations in the neonatal intensive care units of hospitals over a period of 10months. Our observations continued in the local healthcare, social, and educational services, entrusted with providing care to children and support to parents after hospital discharge. We also carried out observations in nursery schools, in order to highlight early forms of individualised educational planning, drawn up by the educators together with the family