Italiano (Italia)
Framework
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission,Reference: 531244-LLP-2012-KA3-KA3MP
Objectives
The main goal of the WHAAM project is to contribute to fostering competitiveness and convergence, in line with the Euro Plus Pact (EUCO 10.1.11 Rev.1). It is focused on training teachers, involved with ADHD students, to practise monitoring techniques in the context of the CB approach. This training course may be deemed as part of the LLL process of teachers and adults, also with a relevant spillover effect on the lives of the ADHD pupils.
Moreover, the project seeks to improve the home-school collaboration in the field of ADHD, promote a stronger awareness of the importance of creating a skilled social network around ADHD pupils and diffuse the use of CB monitoring as the best way to collect data and to plan effective and shared interventions. To accomplish these goals, the project aims to construct a common framework involving educational research centres and some important public and private agencies engaged in the sector of learning and training. This action could increase the awareness of these agencies regarding the possible impact of the technology in the future of ADHD monitoring. To obtain this result it is important to consider the international research results but also to take into account the different local contexts, both at national and regional level.
All these actions are aimed at harmonizing the policies and spreading good practices in CB monitoring, and support the idea that ICT can play an important role in making the multimodal approach a time-efficient strategy for managing students with ADHD, without singling out or stigmatizing the child. In particular, the project intends to explore the opportunity offered by the mobile devices as tools to allow monitoring in real life situations, timely and easily.
The project is oriented to create the conditions for efficient and effective growth in teachers and parents’ abilities in CB monitoring, assuming that this benefits all pupils, not just the pupil with ADHD. Classwide interventions can have a positive effect on the learning and behavioural difficulties frequently associated with ADHD.
Workplan
- to develop a Framework for ICT-based interventions for students with ADHD. It represents a theoretical and methodological tool aimed at guiding the main actors involved in ADHD monitoring and treatment. The results of this work will be diffused to researchers and associations by means of specialized publications, international conferences, and using the project web site.
- to develop a Web Application targeted at parents of children with ADHD, teachers, and health professionals. The Web Application will provide a set of features supporting multimodal interventions for ADHD subjects. In particular, the Web Application will promote the creation of a network of people involved in the management of the deficit: teachers and, more in general, educational staff; ADHD subjects parents and experts in health care. The Web Application will be accessible by personal computers and mobile devices and it will be translated in 4 languages (English, Italian, Portuguese, Greek).
- to design parent and teacher training paths aimed at providing teachers and parents of ADHD pupils with behavioral modification techniques and the Web Application developed;
- to design and deliver an e-Learning module on ICT-based interventions for students with ADHD. This course is directed at students of medical, psychological and educational science faculties, besides teachers and health professionals, interested in improving their knowledge and skills of the treatment of behavioral disorders, using a CB approach and ICT. This module will be open to any European higher education institution that is willing to recognize a certain number of ECTS-credits.
Expected results
The teachers and parents of students/children with ADHD are the main project target group. The main outcome for this group will be teaching them new strategies to monitor the behavior and learning difficulties of ADHD pupils, thus improving their skills in managing the many difficult behavioral aspects both at home and at school.
A relevant output is expected in the organization of schools which have ADHD pupils, pushing them toward more inclusive policies, and improving the collaboration home-school. Furthermore, the use of ICT will permit to spread good practices and new theoretical results throughout the whole community engaged to manage these disorders, at national and international level. The project will make easier to access to some interventions, and to share results and efficacy practices.
Finally, the dissemination activity should contribute to the diffusion of a new awareness about the social and economic costs related to these disorders, and the necessity to spread a multimodal approach, also using ICT, for the treatment of them, so improving the life of families with children with ADHD.