Children with disability at school: the application of ICF-CY in the Veneto region

To show the feasibility and consequences at 1 year of the use of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, version for Children and Youth (ICF-CY) in the process of social and scholastic inclusion for students with disability in a district of Northeastern Italy (Treviso province).

We describe the novel procedure for inclusion of students with disability launched by disability and education Services of the Treviso Province. The protocol was organized in four steps and involved health professionals and teachers throughout the whole Province. The implementation was preceded by intensive exposure of the involved professionals to the ICF-CY model and structure and by workshops in which the participants elaborated the actual documents accompanying the process of scholastic inclusion according to the specific Law (104/1992): the notification card, the identification of the student with disabilities, the functional diagnosis, the dynamic functional profile and the individual educational plan.

The results show that the adherence to the new protocol was very satisfactory, as well as the perceived validity and relevance of the new documents elaborated with ICF language. The experimentation in progress provided interesting indications on the way to apply the ICF-CY to the scholastic inclusion processes.

The largest alphabetization effort on ICF attempted in a Public Health System (disability service) and in the school system improve the social and scholastic participation of student with disability and can reduce the barriers in the environment.