Abstract:

The prevalence of children with disabilities grows year after year, increasing the number of children diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorder, sensory integration disorder, motor disturbances or hyperactive disorder. Sensitive disorder is a neurological condition in which the reception and processing of information received through the senses does not have a regular course and does not result in appropriate responses in a child's behavior. Children with sensory disabilities do not respond or react intentionally to certain stimuli in the environment - they are hypo-sensitive or hyper-sensitive. Due to the frequent audio-visual hyper-sensitivity, parents and teachers often avoid going to public places such as the cinema, actually excluding children from many forms of learning and interacting with others. With the aim of including children with disabilities in the local community and the desire to provide new experiences and forms of learning for them, the concept of Sensory Projections has been launched.

The aim of this paper is to explore the extent to which sensory cinema projections contribute to developing communication competence of children with developmental difficulties and to what extent they encourage the inclusion of children with developmental problems in the local community. Starting from the hypothesis that the communication competence of children with disabilities is developing in interaction with peers of regular development due to unique conditions in the cinema with a closely selected film as the main criteria of the concept of sensory projections. Sensory projections guarantee children with disabilities a modulated environment with less stimulating factors, thus extending their stay in the cinema as well as interacting with peers and contributing to the better inclusion in the local community.

The methodological approach used in the paper is quantitative-qualitative one. A sample of respondents consists of thirty-nine parents and teachers who accompanied children with developmental disabilities during the sensory projections. After the sensory projection an interview was conducted with parents and teachers of children who participated.

Research results show that sensory projections contribute significantly to the improvement of communication competence and the inclusion of children with developmental difficulties. Given that children with disabilities learn most effectively by imitating a model, the communication and interaction of children with disabilities and children with regular development during sensory projections improved the communication skills of children with developmental difficulties. In the company of their peers of regular development, children with disabilities spontaneously adopt new competences and through sensory projections, in the area adapted to their needs, they are led to better data processing and thus the acquisition of new knowledge and skills is made easier for them. At the same time, sensory projections, due to their modular characteristics allow children with disabilities to meet their needs, reduce undesirable behaviors and facilitate interaction with peers, which contributes directly to their integration into the local community.

Keywords:

Sensory projections, communication competence, inclusion, children with disabilities.