Didattica speciale e sviluppo delle competenze lavorative e di vita indipendente

This article highlights the importance of specific teaching actions promoted at school and aimed to promote the acquisition of job-related and independent living skills in students with disabilities. This theme has a particular value in the context of secondary schools, where teachers must plan extended work-related learning experiences (PCTO), as foreseen by a specific section of the IEP. This is an educational challenge, consisting in finding practical and meaningful connections between teaching actions and the Life Project. The reference to the ICF, as required by the new IEP (Legislative Decree 66/2017), represents an opportunity for teachers to design PCTOs addressed to students with disabilities, define specific educational objectives and monitor the training experience. This article reports an experience conducted by the University of Verona that elaborated an online platform for supporting the design of the IEP based on ICF. This platform offers a series of tools for the analysis of competencies and job potentiality of students with disabilities. Also, the article refers to the project developed by the Vicenza Provincial School in 2021/2022, that established the “Interinstitutional Working Table for the elaboration of Pathways aimed to the Development of Traversal Skills and provide Career Guidance (PCTO)” with the precise purpose of developing a shared protocol of intervention between schools and job services in order to promote job-related skills in students with disabilities at school.