Cristina Campanini – Educator
At the Solidarity Center, almost no child can speak. The channel that connects us directly to them is the body—expressed through its silent yet profound language. Joy, well-being, satisfaction, as well as anxiety and distress, are all expressed through facial expression and the eyes, through muscular relaxation or tension.
The Body's Importance
For the severely impaired child, the body is the primary means of human connection and learning. It offers the chief opportunity for communication, understanding, and openness to the world and to others. The physical immobility to which these children are often confined cuts them off from any knowledge gained through autonomous movement—an experience that is fundamental to developing richer perception and a clearer, more integrated sense of self.
The Relationship With the Educator
The relationship that develops with the adult is one of absolute dependence, rooted in the satisfaction of primary needs—hunger, thirst, hygiene, bodily care—and in the emotional support and gratification that sustains each day's educational experience. Guided and engaged physically by the educator, even the most profoundly affected child can inhabit his own body, explore his motor capabilities and the space around him. The relationship that emerges, then, becomes a dialogue of tone and touch.
When the child achieves a kind of fusion with space, with the educator's rhythm—motor, respiratory, and vocal (listening to the voice and its inflections)—he can perceive his own psychophysical identity as a whole and live his emotional world in a genuinely communicative dimension.
The Value of "Group"
From this perspective, everything experienced during the day becomes an opportunity to know oneself, to understand, to feel good alongside others.
In the group, each child can find familiar and reassuring reference points, recognize his companions and the people with whom he shares moments of pleasure and gratification. This opens the way for him to express himself with confidence according to his own individual potential. Being together means also feeling that he is not alone—that he belongs to something emotionally engaging and motivating, something that helps him grow.
What matters, then, is not so much what we do or how much we do, but the manner in which each experience, however simple and everyday, is offered and shared. When there is genuine relationship, any experience, any activity can take on meaning and become truly educational—lived within an atmosphere of acceptance, respect, and participation.
In our day, every moment carries value: arrival, lunch, personal hygiene, rest—these are not routine occasions but opportunities rich in emotional, sensory, and relational significance. They structure the school day and give shape to it. Even the simplest actions and the most ordinary experiences matter. They build in each child a sense of security and calm.
Over the years, each child makes a journey. He constructs a personal history in which he gradually learns to shed some of his insecurities and grow into greater peace and trust—in himself and in others. Through his fragility, he achieves important gains. He reaches a certain emotional autonomy that sustains him and helps him, in every instance, to face the varied experiences of relationship and existence.
Clementina Lupi – Physical Therapist
Today people ask: "What is the role of the rehabilitation therapist at the Solidarity Center?"
If we begin with the understanding that the disabled child's primary need is physical well-being, then we can say that physical therapy is essential.
It must be carried out always, consistently, with careful attention to the smallest postural changes, to modes of expression and communication. The severely impaired child, even if adult in age, can always tend toward worsening—greater spasticity, muscle tension, rigidity—conditions that can make it impossible for caregivers to help him bathe, eat, or dress.
Rehabilitation for these children means comprehensive and targeted mobilization of all the joints and limb segments.
The severely impaired child generally cannot perform even the simplest intentional movement. His only movements are reflexive, governed by primitive reflexes. Left to himself, he can only deteriorate: hip dislocation, severe progressive scoliosis, tendon shortening and muscle contractures, joint rigidity and blockages. Through rehabilitation treatment, we can "break" this cycle—one that could become devastating over time.
A child treated with appropriate physical and movement therapy is more relaxed. He maintains better postural alignment, which benefits him physically. His circulation, respiration, and digestion all improve. Most importantly, his relational capacity opens. When he feels physically better, he can send clearer messages to the world around him—signals that we can read as well-being or distress.
It falls to us educators to observe carefully, to recognize the needs and wishes of the child with cerebral palsy, so that we may relate to him in ways that matter.
