Beneficial for All - Gamesp

The number of people who are born or develops intellectual disabilities has increased considerably lately, affecting about 3% of the world's population. This disability is manifested by impairment of cognitive, communication, motor and social skills, self-care and personal safety. There are also learning and understanding difficulties as a result of the insufficient development of intelligence. However, most of the needs of people with this disability do not differ from those of normal people, and they also need security, socialization, education, and very important professional integration.

In support of people with intellectual disabilities comes Project Gamesp, a project run in several countries with 7 partners from 5 European countries, 3 of which are universities (University of Lodz, Modena University, Aldini Valeriani Sirani Institute in Bologna, ProMAs Project Management Association and 2 companies with technical responsibilities). The project is now in the final phase and results in the virtual gamesp.org platform on which all the results achieved so far, including 10 teaching units with 3 levels of learning, a mobile phone application that can control a physical robot and 30 platforms with images that represent easy-to-understand activities for people with intellectual disabilities.

The project aims to connect the adult with disabilities to the life and everyday activities to help him integrate into work without feeling that he is in a learning process. He teaches what is good to do in certain situations, but also what is not fitting, he learns to get acquainted, cook, how to shop, how to go on the street, what are hobbies and how to help him make friends and move faster over difficult moments.

"The beauty of the Gamesp project is that although it was designed for adults with intellectual disabilities, its results can be transferable into the classroom at any level because philosophy is not the robot but the game, the robot is just the instrument that touches the philosophy of the project. The results are obtained when the robot walks on a picture board and the teacher or parent asks questions and generates a discussion between the player, who may be a person with disabilities, a child or a pupil, so that the player generates his own responses to how and why it is good to do, "says Professor Dorina Goiceanu.