Tag Archive for 'Roma'

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Are you a runner? Take part at one study about them

If you are a runner, take part in this research carried out by Italian Track&Field Federation to learn how you train and what are the main reasons of your involvement in this sport. Click on the figure and go to the page where you will find the questionnaire. Take part in getting to know the world of run lovers.

#RomaMarathon2018

One day at the Rome marathon (www.maratonadiroma.it) and it’s time to free your mind from all the uncertainties about the performance, some ideas:

  • look back at training period and your commitment to be here
  • be proud of this journey
  • enjoy the excitement you feel, including fears that go through your head
  • thinks that Sunday you go to do just what you like best, running
  • it is obvious that it will be very tiring
  • keep your pace
  • you’re going to do something important for you, otherwise you would not have trained so hard

#IncludeUsFromTheStart

Sport must be more and more an opportunity to integrate the differences.The Integrated Soccer Academy offers together with AS Roma  a path of integration through football of girls and children, 6-12 years old.

The world day dedicated to people with Down syndrome must do reflect on how far we are to do achieve the goal of integration.

Football Integrated for children with mental disabilities

Roma Cares Foundation and the Integrated Football Academy continue even this year the project “Football Together” directed to children of 6-13 years with intellectual disabilities. The project aims to use football to promote the sports, social and psychological development of young people. The program is meant to be a sport training adapted to the needs of each individual, with specific motor and psychosocial assessments (beginning, during and year-end) permitting anyone to learn if followed by competent professionals (football instructors, sports psychologists, speech therapist and doctors) with training sessions organized into units of 60 minutes twice a week from October to June.

For further information: segreteria@accademiacalciointegrato.org

Totti’s farewell to the fans

Totti’s farewell to the fans: «his strength has been to show their fragility»

The sport psychologist Alberto Cei: «Now Francesco must seek a way to make peace with himself, to fill those voids that inevitably he will have»

Risultati immagini per totti

Integrated soccer, autism, AS Roma, Sweden Victoria Princess

Risultati immagini per Roma scuola calcio principessa victoria svezia

Autism, soccer integrated: research abstract

Calcio Insieme is a project promoted by Roma Cares Foundation, non-profit organization linked to the broader context of Social Responsibility and Sustainability of AS ROMA and A.S.D. Accademia di Calcio Integrato, whose objective is the development of education and culture integrated to the values of sport through the soccer.

Soccer is the sport most loved and practiced by girls and boys around the world, but for young people with learning difficulties are rare, if not absent, the opportunities allowing them to live this sport as an educational and playful experience. Therefore, this applied research project, spread over three years, is aimed at children (6-12 years) with intellectual disabilities and with particular reference to those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Calcio Insieme project wants to promote the physical activity and soccer teaching for these children, in order to improve the quality of their lives through a continuous sport practice over time. In the same time, this project wants also to develop a methodology model of teaching, specific for these children, through this applied research.

Calcio Insiemebegan in September 2015 with the collaboration of some schools of Roma. They promoted among families of children with intellectual disabilities the knowledge of this initiative. They organize information meetings lead by the staff of Calcio Insieme to start building a community whose school, family, sport organization and staff could feel part of a common project at its center there are the children with intellectual disabilities and especially those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Since the beginning the project has had as main focus the empowerment of each child through the soccer, as recommended by the International Paralympic Committee.

To better understand the different steps of the experiment carried out by the technical-scientific staff of Calcio Insieme at the Giulio Onesti Center, in Roma, it’s important to acknowledge what are the autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and what are the limits and the motor/psychological potential of children with ASD and the report describes in detail the main features and the research results.

This report begins with an overview of autism spectrum disorders and what are the limits and the motor potential of these children. It emerges that, up to now, the experiences carried out in this area included only individual sports and that no investigation has been conducted to test how the group sports and soccer specifically could be a means of improving the motor/sports skills and the psychological and interpersonal skills. In the section devoted to the method are described the diagnoses of 30 children (27 boys and 3 girls). They  have participated in the project by attending at the training program for an hour twice a week for 5 months. They were divided into two sub-groups (Green and Red) as a function of their motor skills and psycho-relational competences. All children were subjected to the initial and final motor assessment. Similarly it proceeded with the psychological and interpersonal evaluation carried out at the beginning at the end through interviews with parents and their school teachers and an assessment carried out on the field and continuing for the duration of the period of activities carried out by football coaches and the sport psychologists. In addition, before the start of the program, the whole staff  including sport psychologists, youth football instructors, one speech therapist, one sport physician and one coordinator of the relations with families and schools have participated in a specific training, theoretical and practical, learning to be sensitive and to work with young individuals with intellectual disorders. The results showed that in relation to motor skills there are significant differences from the initial assessment in relation to 6 tests out of 10. The children improved in tests regarding: walking between the cones, running between the cones, roll on the mat, high jump (3 obstacles 20 / 30cm), grab (5 launches from 1 to 5 meters away from the instructor) and stay balanced on jellyfish.

In relation to run with the ball (to drive the ball into a space 15m long and 4m wide) were detected two results. The first is that, even at the end of the program, 39.3% of children did not show any improvement. The second is of opposite sign and shows that 28.6% is placed in an intermediate skill level. They drive the ball, move frequently left and right even if out of the lane. In addition, 10.7% shows a medium-high skill level, driving the ball without leaving the lane. These data show there is a significant difference from the point of view of the motor competences among the children, while for some the training it’s characterized more as motor activity oriented to the acquisition of basic motor patterns, for others it’s oriented to  teach the soccer fundamentals.

The questionnaire administered at the end of the program to the parents of the children examined the following skills: cooperation, participation in the games, understand the others and be understood, communicate with each other, socialize, approach the new situations/people and reduction of behavioral problems. For each of these skills, the parents have expressed a final assessment, it showed that they believe their children are improved significantly. It’s also interesting to note that the same questionnaire was administered to school support teachers of children and the resulting data are similar to those experienced by parents. Assessments made on the field by sport psychologists and coaches have shown that the majority of young people have improved, even if  they achieved very different skill levels, depending on the difficulty level initially expressed. For the future, they are clearly detectable paths of physical activity and sports differentiated between the two groups of children (Red and Green).

In summary, these data confirm the findings of the research review conducted on people with autism spectrum disorder (Sowa e Meulenbroek, 2012). That is to say, that the motor/sport skills increase with specific program of motor/sports learning. Our study adds that the organization of training sessions in group interventions and individual interventions promote the development of social skills, as in part it has been showed by Walker, Barry and Bader (2010). This pilot study has also responded to the request to organize “a naturalistic intervention based on group sports like soccer” (Sowa and Meulenbroek, 2012; p.56) and, till now it was never been documented. In addition, as already showed (Luiselli 2014), the behavioral problems were reduced, decreasing the stereotyped movements and the self-stimulation behaviors.

Finally, it should be mentioned those results achieved which are not identifiable in scientific terms but that at the same time are important for a project with the aim to reduce the limits of the children with ASD and widen their skills at 360 degrees. The most significant are the following: the first football games played between them and the coaches and two games 4vs4 with players of Roma Academy; the identification process with AS Roma has increased the children socialization and stimulated their pride being a part of Roma team; live this experience with professionals totally dedicated to them and willing to respect the times of socialization and learning while not ceasing to guide them in the activities; for families it has been important to meet each other, sharing these experiences and feeling themselves as an active part of the project.

 

Soccer School for children with intellectual disabilities

«AS Roma is pleased to announce that, since January 2016, the Club promotes and supports the “Calcio Insieme”, a program born from the collaboration between the Fondazione Roma Cares e l’Associazione dilettantistica “Calcio integrato” the training pitch of Italian Olympic Center “Giulio Onesti” were made available at boys and girls, aged between six and twelve years old, suffering from intellectual disabilities of various levels, supported by a pool of doctors, speech therapists and instructors.
The goals are the development of the physical and psychosocial well-being of children, the reduction of stress related to their living conditions, to increase their self-assessment skills and the motivation to motor activity.
A technical team of AS Roma, with sport psychologists, has developed specific educational methodologies to create a safe, comfortable and never boring environment.
Among the results expected, there is the development of the culture of integration  and the education to the values ​​of sport through the soccer.
“Roma is a great social platform, and we are conscious of the responsibility that comes – says the AS Roma general manager, Mauro Baldissoni -. I hope this is one of the many experiments that we will put up in action. Sport has always been an aggregator and along a motivational tool to go over the limits. Have on the pitch children with intellectual disabilities  is a chance for them to improve.”
The instructors were joined by a medical team, coordinated by Professor Alberto Cei, scientific director of “Calcio Insieme”, looking closely the progress of these young athletes, looking for improvements in the movement coordination, in their self-awareness or more simply in daily life.
“Soccer can be a vital tool to help children with mental disabilities to develop yourself – explains Patrizia Minocchi, president of ASD Calcio Integrato-. This magical tool, the ball, has already yielded the first results, the children are learning to relate with the others.”»

Roma, too under pressure for the responsibility

Calcaterra from top sport to sport for all

This morning while applauded Giorgio Calcaterra passing in Piazza del Popolo, during the Rome Marathon, many close to me were amazed of rooting for him and asked: “But who is Giorgio?”. Giorgio is that athlete, several times world champion of 100 km, which reached the finish line will start again for the second time the Rome Marathon, ending it with the latest. Giorgio is a top runner (2,34h today) who wants to witness through his passion for running, that if it possible to run it twice consecutively, everyone can at least once. From elite sport to sport for all the marathon would become a journey that a healthy individual can participate. Often people tease runners employing 5-6 hours or more to run this distance. It’s the exact opposite way in which they must be perceived. They want to conclude it  because it brings us back to the legend of Pheidippides. It’s'succeed in a physical and mental challenge at which you never thought to attend and finish. Precisely for this reason, he joy is immense when we finish a marathon, we feel proud to have achieved the impossible. We will have forever this feeling within us. Calcaterra is running for all of us, for all those who have not yet run it and for those who are still struggling. Why run the marathon means finding pleasure in feeling tired, and sharing this state of mind with others around us, because the challenge is to finish it, bringing this feeling for life. This is making George, share his joy with everyone.