The use of structural games as an educational tool in day care centres for disabled people

Abstract

Within day care centres for disabled people, the activities carried out are aimed at experimenting with and gradually improving cognitive and motor skills. Often, the educational effort makes use of small recreational tasks that have specific implicit goals. However, there has been little discussion regarding the potential of an educational model explicitly and entirely based on play therapy, as it is still largely seen as a mere recreational tool. Teaching to play and, at the same time, learning through experimentation of one's physical abilities within a carefully crafted flow, leads to achieving tremendous results that can be further verified experimentally and experientially. The following text will present and discuss the methodologies developed by a team of operators during their work in a rehabilitation-focused day care centre, which over the years led to the creation and tuning of a structural gaming activities program for patients.