Training Special Needs Children's Parents and Teachers for Refreshment (TPT) PROIECT GRUNDTVIG

Portraits Aim: self knowldege and presentation Contents: the participants are split in two groups: painters and models. The two teams sit face to face, so that each painter can see his/ her model. Between the painters and the models there is a table, where the painters will make the portaits. At START all the painters begin drawing the model in front of them but when they hear STOP they put the marker on the piece of paper and the painters exchange their portatit with the one on the left of them until the last painter becomes the first. The game continues with the commands START and STOP until the one that was the first painter arrives to his initial position and writes the name of the model on the piece of paper.

The secret friend -Prietenul secret  Contents:  Each participant to the workshop writes his/her name and country on a piece of paper. Fold the pieces of papaer and put them in a bowl, mix them and each participant takes a note out. From this moment the name you extracted becomes the secret friend for a few days (Friday evening). This means that you will more friendly to that person, you will give a little present to that person, etc

Expectance, fears, resources The blouse-expectance The trousers-fears The underwear- resources

Aspects and therapeutic advantages Once it became a mass sport, with public training in parks, organized in associations and clubs, beneficial results of juggling on physical and mental condition were found were quickly. Among the very talented jugglers one can find mathematicians and physicians, probably because of the mental experimental nature of their preoccupation for dimensions and relationships. Also psychologists and doctors that practise juggling analyzed its effects, according to the specificity of their profession. Among the most impressive results, here are some of the most significant:

 Psychologists describes juggling as an “eruption of the right cerebral hemisphere in the programme of the left one” underlining the stimulation spatial energy ( by visualizing the trajectories), of musical one (through rhythm) and kinesthetic energy (through rotation, catching and throwing).

 Teachers noticed the influence of juggling on fine motricity of children, for example on the accelaration of reading and writing.

 On children with special educational needs (dyslexia, ADHD, hyperactivity), juggling leads to a decrease of the anxiety and emotivity level the increase of patience and capacity of concentration, improvement of behavior.

 Juggling is a useful form of education: it develops movement and balance coordination, eases communication, collaboration and develops team spirit and the competition spirit.

 In 2002 a juggling programme involving children suffering from juvenile arthritis developed under the patronage of the Arthritis Foundation Missouri, USA. All the participants notices an increase in the flexibility of their joints, the eye-hand coordination and also a decrease in pain.

 In the USA more than people suffering from different neurological lesions as a result of accidents, encephalopathy and cardiac arrest practise juggling as a form of therapy.

 In many American hospitals in areas with a higher degree of violence (Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles) medical recovery treatments involve juggling, including the patients in a wheel chair or ones that can use only one hand.

 In autism juggling can substitute stereotypical –repetitive behavior due to its specific abilities.

Therefore juggling can be associated to corrective- compensatory therapy in illnesses like: different forms of paralysis, deafness, neurological disease Langdon-Down syndrome, ADHD, speech disturbance, neurotic disturbance, psychological disturbance, mental deficiencies, affective disturbance of institutionalized children.

 Finally, among the physical and mental aspects that juggling develops and recovers we can also add an increase in concentration and servomotor coordination, reaction speed, agility, creativity, spatial visualization, bilateralism, self esteem and good humor.