On a large calendar hanging on the wall, the days are marked with a small ship and a bed: Alberto's father works half the month as a sailor on a ferry boat.
Little Alberto, born with hydrocephalus and deaf, has been blind since age seven. He measures time this way: after removing fifteen ships from the calendar, he knows his father is coming home soon—and he is a happy child. There is no better introduction to a visit to "Nostra casa" in Osimo.
"Alberto was very confused and anxious," the director explains. "Now he knows when his father is away or about to return, and he waits calmly." This story captures what happens here in Osimo, and how: self-sufficiency, communication, independence, and when possible, socialization — these are the goals of this very special 'school.' To understand how they achieve this, we walked from "classroom" to "classroom" with open eyes. The arrangement of spaces and the richness of materials amazed us from the start. When I say richness, I don't mean luxurious teaching materials. I mean the abundance, imagination, and variety of handmade objects designed to create communication and break through the isolation of these children sealed in darkness and silence. The villa is spacious: wide hallways, vast rooms with soaring ceilings, space to move freely—yet carefully divided. Each classroom has four corners, one for each child. Every day, each child finds his teacher and his materials waiting: his own cabinet, table, chair, and a daily calendar that seemed mysterious at first glance. Small objects glued or held with tape to wooden boards indicate the day's activities. For more advanced students, there's also a weekly calendar: for example, a wooden board with a small house, three yellow pegs, a toy car, and some empty space. Each day the girl comes to touch it, removes a peg, moves the car forward, and counts how many pegs are left. This way she knows how many days remain before going home for the weekend.
Teaching the deaf-blind child above all else the possibility of personal choice—and in this way opening the door to free will.
A shelf catches our eye, lined with strange objects in separate compartments: a miniature ladder, doll-sized plate and utensils, two plastic hands and a piece of soap glued to wooden tablets. These are the "words" the child will learn by touching them before carrying out the actions they represent. This communicates to the deaf-blind child what he is about to do, while introducing him to the world of symbols. Later, it allows the child to choose his own activity. This shows admirable concern—not just to teach the child something or communicate with him, but to help him discover the possibility of personal choice. Until now, he has been condemned to passivity: carried, guided, fed, unable to understand or say "yes" or "no" except perhaps through crying. Now the door to free will opens for him. What tribute is this? What concrete form of love and respect!Mealtimes happen in the classroom, this time together at a central table—another essential lesson of the day. It requires long, careful work when the child refuses food or has never fed himself at all.
M. is an advanced student; she eats slowly but on her own. Her plate sits on an upside-down box to shorten the distance from plate to mouth. Later, the box's height will be gradually reduced and eventually removed. This shows another basic principle of their pedagogy. Every skill must be analyzed carefully and broken into dozens of small steps. It's as if, for someone who cannot climb normal stairs, the staircase is rebuilt with steps so low that climbing is slow but genuinely possible.
This requires:
- a thorough analysis of gestures and activities to design meticulous programming;
- making materials suited to the purpose, since nothing like this exists commercially;
- repeating this work an unimaginable number of times, because progress is slow when—as is almost always true here—intelligence itself is also affected.
This step-by-step work, made of endless repetitions, demands from educators tremendous discipline to maintain their own focus and avoid the routine and indifference that would ruin the quality of the work.
Moreover, anyone who knows multiply handicapped children understands the many obstacles that stand in the way: behavioral problems, passivity, self-harm. The multiply handicapped child, like all of us, can be motivated only by reward or gratification.
For normal children, these rewards come naturally in many forms, growing more complex and subtle over time: an adult's smile at a newborn, the tone of praise in a voice, a distant object finally reached, the sound it makes when it falls—everything leads to discovering and using the world around us. But what can he see, hear, discover—understand—without very special help? This is where behavior techniques and reinforcement come in (from tiny rewards of candy to increasingly symbolic gratification).
Next to each classroom is a bedroom. Here too, each large room is divided into personal spaces with a bed, chair, and dresser—really a chest of drawers with various compartments. On each drawer, in raised relief, is glued a shape showing what's inside: clothes, linens, always in order, always in the same place. Again, this aims at teaching independence—not just so the child can move around alone, but so he can dress himself and find his own clothes.
This represents a very advanced level. For some, clothes are drawn with silhouettes; some children have residual vision that lets them perceive shapes. The movements of children who cannot see or hear are guided through these spaces by numerous devices invented for each one (tactile signs, ropes, wooden paths). Every program is personalized down to the smallest detail. Only at this price is progress possible with these children. Next to the bedroom is the bathroom—an essential part of the school's program. Here, each morning at eight o'clock, every child is guided by his teacher. Here he learns, step by step like everything else, to wash himself, and first and foremost to control his bladder and bowels: a long, difficult learning process but so essential to gaining independence. Here, each evening, the child finishes his program with the educator who has followed him every moment of his day. In fact, two teachers work with each child during the day—the first from eight to two, the second from two to eight—because no one could sustain such intense concentration for twelve consecutive hours. There is also a specially equipped gymnasium; many of these children must also learn to walk. Every movement of the body requires time and work for them.
Outside, surrounding the villa that overlooks a wonderful landscape, are classic garden toys and special games designed to teach climbing, sliding, and swinging.
One could speak of the small house next to the main building, where older students work. A girl dries dishes with a slowness and care that is fascinating. Another chooses a tag from a shelf indicating she wants to wash the dishes. I watch her pull a stool from under the sink and climb it to reach the proper height—she is small in stature.
One could speak too of two apartments, very nicely furnished, in the city of Osimo, where about ten former students live, each learning at his own level the satisfactions of independence and the pleasure of being useful.
One could speak of the workshop on the nearby street, where some go during the day to work with raffia or do small assembly jobs.
Many will never reach this level, but all make progress—sometimes minimal progress, but always essential for them, for their families, and for us, so that we can no longer accept that some cases are hopeless and irretrievable.
by Nicole Schultes, 1986
Lega del Filo d'Oro: Brief Overview (1986)
The medical-psychological-pedagogical Institute Nostra casa for children and young people, and the community Kalorama for adults, were founded respectively in 1967 and 1975 by Lega del Filo d'Oro, an association established in 1964 to promote the integration into society of deaf-blind people. They serve about sixty people with multiple disabilities each year. Volunteers provide important support work in many activities, including summer stays. Their commitment extends to the children's home regions so that time in the institute does not harm relationships with families and social integration.
To allow families to observe the work done with their children, the institute has two external apartments where parents periodically spend several days with their child, preparing for his return home. The children's social connections are fostered through play activities and meetings with other young people. The importance of Lega del Filo d'Oro's work (a nonprofit organization) has been recognized by numerous public bodies that have provided significant funding, which, though difficult to obtain, allows the work to continue. In particular, the Ministry of Public Education, the Marche Region, and the health authorities from the children's home districts provide important—though insufficient—support to Lega del Filo d'Oro's activities.