Abstract:

Italian legislation establishes that children with disabilities have to attend common schools of all levels and that educational contexts have to modify their teaching strategies in order to become more suitable for everyone's needs and promote inclusion.

In the inclusive perspective, it is very important for children with disabilities to attend educational places, such as the nursery, from an early age. In fact, the nursery is a context in which it is possible not only to reduce the deficit, but also to educate in sociability, learn through modeling and implement inclusive processes (Tonnini, 2014, p. 91).

The presence of a child with disabilities in the nursery requires that educators reflect in a more articulated way on the needs of that child and his family (Cesaro, 2015). Educational design must become more individualized so that the child can play an active role in the acquisition of cognitive, relational and social skills, despite his physical or functional limitations (WHO, 2001).

Collaboration with the family and rehabilitation services is necessary in the design and implementation of the child's development path. It is necessary to establish an exchange relationship in order to share common objectives and methodologies.

The problem of the presented exploratory and interpretative research (conducted in Italy, in the Liguria region) is that most families of children with disabilities prefer that their child don't attend the nursery postponing to the early childood school their entry into a social context outside the family system. Starting from this problem, the aim of the research was to identify the variables that have influenced the choice of families (enroll or not their child whit disability at the nursery).

A series of interviews were conducted with families (who did not choose and who chose the nursery for their child), with educators and teachers.
The results of these interviews allowed us to obtain useful information to define:
1. the characteristics that a truly inclusive educational service for children must have
2. the elements that determine in families the perception of the nursery as a resource and educational opportunity for their children or, instead, as a context that is not suitable for development and possible evolution based on the type of disability
3. the characteristics that the educational / didactic design prepared by the educators, and the intervention strategies they implement, must have in order to be effective in a perspective for All.

In particular, the last aspect that will be illustrated in detail in the contribution, has been fundamental both to lead the parents of children with disabilities to choose the nursery, and to encourage the early inclusion of children with disabilities, through the preparation of a Life Plan agreed between educational and rehabilitation services.

In this regard, the educational continuity path, that must exist between nursery and early childwood school, was also analyzed because it is important to respond to requests for the new 0-6 service provided by Italian law.

Keywords:

Inclusion, nursery, educational design, educational continuity.