Special Needs teacher training in Italian universities: a didactic proposal for the development of PE-related skills

Paying more attention to physical activity in Special Needs teacher training has now become part of a new interesting approach to Plural Interdisciplinary research (Sibilio & Gomez Paloma, 2004). In accordance with the provisions of the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR, 2019), lab-based teaching is a crucial stage for summarizing and integrating the knowledge acquired during traditional single-subject teaching, with a view to designing and projecting education more effectively than before. So, PE-lab-based practice enables future Special Needs teachers to acquire new educational skills and develop greater professional capabilities. The present contribution evinces the lab-based active education and training course for future Special Needs teachers at University of Reggio Calabria, Italy, which envisages that the participants develop specific. PE-related skills. A descriptive survey was carried out on a sample of about 200 future professors in support of the University of Reggio Calabria. The main aim of the effort is to sensitize teachers and trainers to the importance of a-priori designing and projecting in education and training approaches that want to cater for the wants and needs of all recipients. The results of the study evince the trainees’ strong need for more specific PE-related training, particularly in view of its inclusive-education-oriented aims. The data yielded induce us to reflect on our need to design specific PE-related university training action that distances itself from all those practices based upon deficit epistemology of disability, which defines differences as being the product of deficit conditions exclusively concentrated on the person (Sgambelluri, Straniero, Valenti, 2020).