INSIDE stands for "INclusive education of children with developmental disabilities through basic Skill Instruction and Developmental Education".

Design a post-graduate training course and a teachers' guide in cognitive, language and social development of at risk and learning disabled children, with a special focus on inclusion into a normal school curriculum

Inclusive education is becoming increasingly a prime objective of the European Community in order to ensure social integration and prevent social exclusion. This project is a concrete answer to the appeal made by the United Nations 1993 Declaration on Equal Opportunities for the Disabled (where an urgent recommendation was made to include special children in ordinary schools) ; the UNESCO Conference in Salamanca (Spain -1994) on Inclusive Education - which stated that the best environment for special children to develop is the mainstream school; and the Treaty of Maastricht and Amsterdam, containing a non-discrimination clause towards the disabled. also the Commission's D.G.V. White Paper "Teaching and Learning; towards a cognitive society", explicitly stated that societies should make more effort to transform the school system towards a more cognitive approach, with a focus on teaching thinking skills and flexibility, particularly to at-risk pupils, of which there are so many in the Community.

However, at-risk children often drop out early from the school system. In many countries they are referred to special education and end up in a separate, protected environment with low stimulation and challenges. In this way they enlarge the population of unemployed, excluded individuals. If one wants to change this situation, one needs to start early, by training teachers, and the child's educational environment, to enhance the child's cognitive learning processes and change the teacher's didactic.

Teachers in mainstream schools have very little means and knowledge how to instruct children with developmental and/or learning disabilities in acquiring basic conceptual skills (including reading, writing and arithmetic). They have problems with differentiation of content in the classroom, lack of knowledge of methods and effective approaches, because they usually base their teaching styles on transmitting content, not process.

The partners knew each other from meetings at international conferences in Israel (1994), Madrid (1995), and Bordeaux (1996) on the subject of preventing social exclusion via cognitive education. All partners have acquired, each in their field, a lot of experience through research and practice in the area of special needs education for children with developmental and learning disabilities.

All partners have been using or have developed innovative methods which have proven their effectiveness in instructing learning or developmentally disabled children basic conceptual skills, reading , writing and arithmetic, and in understanding the process of learning itself:

1. basic concept teaching by Magne Nyborg (Norway)

2. early language, reading and cognition training by Sue Buckley (UK)

3. mediated learning experience based on Feuerstein’s theory of structural cognitive modifiability

Through national and international work, the partners have access to a large network of professionals working in education throughout Europe. However, this knowledge seldom reaches mainstream teachers, and stays too much confined to one country due to language and other practical barriers. Hence, combining these methods will yield a powerful blend which has a potential to help transforming the school system and the teacher's didactic skills towards better learning and inclusion of all children.

Project INSIDE brings together three pioneering approaches on the domain of cognitive enhancement of learning potential:

Differences in cognitive development cannot be explained exclusively by hereditary, congenital conditions or by environmental determinants such as socio-economic status of parents, cultural differences or familial background, but rather are the result of adequate Mediated Learning Experience (MLE). MLE is defined as the quality of the interaction in which human beings, such as parents, teachers, caregivers as well as peers, interpose themselves between a stimulus in the environment and an individual, in order to ensure that the stimulus is perceived, grasped and integrated in a meaningful way. It is through MLE that an individual builds up his cognitive functions, prerequisites for independent learning afterwards. Feuerstein distinguishes 12 criteria of MLE.

From this theory, an practical cognitive intervention method (Instrumental Enrichment), dynamic assessment method (LPAD or Learning Propensity Assessment Device) and a set of didactic tools in order to create strong learning environments, have been elaborated

The objective of this course is to introduce teachers and special needs helping staff to the approach of the INSIDE projec: how to help at risk children to really fruitfully participate in mainstream education by activating their cognitive functions and giving teachers

• The Portsmouth DownsEd System of Early Language and Reading training

• Nyborg’s Concept Teaching Model

• Feuerstein’s Mediated Learning Experience

With the participation of an international team of lecturers

The way of working is interactive and concrete. Therefore maximum 25 people per workshop will be allowed per group.

The INSIDE partners developped a series of pedagogical materials for use in and out of the classroom, aimed at promoting cognitive development and promoting differentiated teaching: