EDUCATIONAL SERVICES DEPARTMENT
SERVICES FOR DEAF PEOPLE
The Institute of the Deaf of Turin offers a comprehensive and differentiated individual educational assistance in schools, at home and in the residential area of deaf minors and teenagers, also with corresponding pathologies.
The service is provided under an agreement or accreditation with social welfare agencies, intercommunity consortia, municipalities, mountain communities, ASL/ATS, schools and universities in the regions of Piedmont and Lombardy.
The educational intervention is carried out by qualified and specialized educators, such as communication and autonomy assistants, in full compliance with the methodological guidelines formulated by the family, in a network with other social and health actors and according to the integrated approach proposed by the classification ICF Extension.
Territorial educational services are also provided for the benefit of:
- Deaf adults with specific needs related to sociability, autonomous living and job placement.
- Minors and adults with genetic syndromes associated with sensory impairments (Charge syndrome, Waanderburg syndrome, Husher syndrome).
Referent: Luisa Accardo
Contact: educativa@istitutosorditorino.org
Contact for services in Lombardia: milano@istitutosorditorino.org
SERVICES FOR PEOPLE WITH COMMUNICATION DISABILITIES
Learning Signs. When the LIS meets the BES.
The “Istituto dei Sordi di Torino” offers an innovative individualised service for minors and adults with communication disabilities that involves the use of sign language to support their communication development. Sign language is usually associated with the deaf, but in reality it should be associated with all humanity, which has used it in different contexts and eras, even within hearing communities. Modern studies of language acquisition confirm this "universality" of sign languages: for example, we now know that the language is completely independent of the auditory-phonatory modality and not of the visual-gestural one. We also know that there is a "genetic" continuity between visual-gestural and oral modes of communication, and that multimodality is in our nature and represents a great enrichment and opportunity. It follows that sign language is a potentially highly effective tool not only for deaf students, but for a much broader school population (and beyond).
The projects carried out so far have involved people with autism spectrum syndrome, with Down syndrome, with dyspraxia, with mental retardation and other communication and speech disorders.
The main functions attributed to sign language in these projects are the following:
Substitute function: Some children do not speak for very different reasons, not always related to a lesion in the brain regions responsible for language. In these cases, LIS may have an absent or very deficient substitute function of oral language, for example, due to the greater iconicity of many signs, the simpler execution compared to orality, the presence of gestures even in the first communication between mother and child.
Integrative verbal support function: children with SEN often need multimodal input more than others. These modalities can be visual, auditory, and kinesthetic, and sign language is a perfect tool to provide visual stimuli in addition to verbal/auditory input. When there is a deficiency in a particular area, one modality can provide the foundation for the development of another. In this case, LIS can become a "scaffold" that supports, encourages and strengthens the acquisition and development of oral language.
Social function: children with SEN may experience frustration when communication is difficult. The frustration may manifest itself in aggression, isolation, depression, or other socially unacceptable behaviours. Sign language reduces this frustration by providing a way to express and communicate, overcoming communication barriers between children with and without difficulties, and promoting better communicative exchange and more direct interaction without adult mediation.
Inclusive function: LIS can promote expression at the visual-gestural level in all children and improve some cognitive areas such as attention, discrimination, and visual memory. Young children develop their general motor skills earlier than the fine motor skills required for spoken language, so signs stimulate vocabulary development in all children.
Referent: Luisa Accardo
Contact: educativa@istitutosorditorino.org
SERVICES FOR BLIND AND PROOFED PERSONS
The Institute of the deaf of Turin offers a comprehensive and differentiated individual educational assistance in schools, at home and in the residential area of deaf minors and teenagers, also with corresponding pathologies.
The service is provided under an agreement or accreditation with social welfare agencies, intercommunity consortia, municipalities, mountain communities, ASL/ATS, schools and universities in the regions of Piedmont and Lombardy.
The educational intervention is carried out by qualified and specialized educators, such as communication and autonomy assistants, in full compliance with the methodological guidelines formulated by the family, in a network with other social and health actors and according to the integrated approach proposed by the classification ICF Extension.
The possibility of using various methodologies is foreseen: teaching of Braille, use of assistive technologies and speech synthesis, construction of tactile books, paths of autonomy, basal stimulations for the complex disability associated with the visual one.
The possibility of using different methods is foreseen: Braille teaching, use of assistive technologies and speech synthesis, creation of tactile books, ways of autonomy, basal stimulation for the complex disability associated with the visual disability.
Training and tutoring courses are also available for schools that accept students with visual impairments. The courses for teachers are accredited by the Miur.
The Institute is a member of ENVITER, the European network of professionals working in the field of visual impairment (https://www.enviter.eu/), and is therefore involved in numerous European projects in this field, for research and continuous training of educators, teachers and families.
Referent: Barbara Deusebio and Cristina Gallino
Contact: sediv@istitutosorditorino.org
PRIMARY SCHOOL
"Father Antonio Loreti"
The kindergarten "Padre Antonio Loreti" is a school of equal rights, attached to the Municipality of Pianezza, which has always paid attention to the development of the language, welcoming deaf and hearing children, because it is the heir of the historical kindergarten for deaf children (which has existed since the second half of the 19th century).
The school is managed by the Istituto dei Deaf (Institute of the Deaf) in Turin, with the aim of ensuring the full realization of the right to school for children between the ages of three and six, who are enrolled voluntarily by their families.
The school accepts hearing and deaf children without distinction, in accordance with the statutory guidelines of the Governing Body, which has as a special objective the integral education of the person.
The teachers, trained in the knowledge of LIS (Italian Sign Language), have always collaborated with the speech therapists of the Audiological Center of the Institute for the Deaf, with whom they have launched a project "How words sound" since 2006, with the aim of early detection of speech and learning disorders.