Physical activities and special education. A case-study with autism spectrum disorders students

Since Convention of ‘Sport in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’ (2007) elaborated a ‘multi-faceted’ framework for implementation, sports and physical activities - in the school context - has been used to promote social equality and self participation of students with disabilities (European Council, Erasmus+ 2014/2020). Among traditional school practices, sports and physical activities are often connected to leisure and expressivity activities, providing only the body-material component. However, the Italian latest curriculum reforms (2007 and 2012) have highlighted the social competences related to sports and physical activities, although about the support function of physical activity to learning processes, especially in case of disabilities, there is much more to discover. The paper presents the design-research, methodology and early results of an exploratory case-study, accomplished at the University of Bari. According to neuro-didactics studies and using the heuristic tool of active and bodily mediation, aimed: a) to investigate the mediation function of physical activities included within the interventions programs for student with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) supporting the related learning processes; b) more specifically, to test the efficiency of ‘iconic visualizers’ (Kozhevnikov et al., 2005) - as videomodeling and flashcards - supporting the didactical communication and the understanding of motor activities performance. © The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology.