Comportamenti problema della sfera sessuale e studenti con disabilità intellettiva. Indagine all’interno della scuola secondaria statale.

Since the eighties of the twentieth century, studies, researches, debates, discussions forums about “sexuality and disability” have certainly proliferated while the scientific themes have been considered from different points of view, different perspectives, so that it has gradually become more open and more and more consistent to the recognition that sex is a fundamental need of all human beings and in compliance with the consequent right of the persons with disability to live their sexuality in the form and in the manners permitted by the deficit and his functional character. These views have produced several works on the problematic behaviours of sexual acting out by people with intellectual disabilities (particularly adults) but a survey on the topic focused in a school context was still missing. The research, through the eyes of witnesses, has explored the context of a secondary school in order to detect whether and how the students with intellectual disabilities put their sex drive into action that can be appeared highly problematic, and with what characteristics such conducts occur. It has been also investigated the consequences of the phenomenon which result in terms of relapse processes on inclusion and sought to verify the existence of institutional responses to the problems and needs in education that students with disabilities express themselves in this particular stage of development. As to structure, the research project has taken as a reference a model of exploratory type because the basic purpose of the survey has been either to gain a rich and detailed knowledge as much as possible on a concrete phenomenon, little or not yet investigated, working within a specific social context or to increase and improve the level of understanding of the relationships among the different aspects of this phenomenon – even with reference to scientific theories and models – in order to devise precise proposals for targeted interventions in the near future. In the first part of the research, the epistemic tool used for data collection was the individual witnesses (support teachers) from the Province of Padua and Vicenza, while the following step, after studying the use of the interviews, the analysis and interpretations of the collected empirical material, it was decided to make use of focus groups with teachers coming from the Province of Verona, with the main objective of assessing the effectiveness and usefulness of the interview instrument, as well as finding further information. The results of the research have led to state that in the secondary school, at least, with regard to the Provinces in which the interviews were granted, students with intellectual disabilities show sexual behaviours which constitute some problems both for themselves and for the context in which they occur. Their behaviour are not faced and managed by the school staff in a proper effective ways; nor prevention aimed policy is adopted (i.e. to start educational paths of sexual and emotional dimension that take into account the problems, the difficulties and the special needs of disabled students). The consequences are that the lack of educational instruments hampers the integration and generates additional disabilities to such students, since, in most cases, maladaptive behaviour induces teachers to separate disable students from their mates, moving them away from the class and in special cases even from school. Of course this is a further handicap that prevents disabled children from taking part in socialization processes involving their usual school-mates and planned activities of the whole class. In spite of this critical situation, the secondary school institution shows little consideration of the need and the importance of taking charge, in terms of education, the sexual dimension of students with intellectual disabilities, and the duty of giving all pupils the same educational opportunities and education (we refer particularly to the courses of sex education offered by the secondary school). Finally, with regard to the need for the school staff to be trained on research themes, the teachers report that they are available to an “environment training” which is implemented within the single school context in which the need occurs and which is open to the whole staff of teachers and school managers. Such a training should start from the analysis of the problems so that all teachers should be taught to make use of strategies and to manage them starting from formal and also informal intra and inter-institutional networking.