The body and sound in the development of the interactional potential of children and youths with Special Educational Needs

This article reports the results of the psycho-pedagogical intervention entitled "The Body and Sound: identifying interactions and new languages". This research study, which emerged from the Postgraduate Course of Special Education of the Escola Superior de Educacao de Paula Frassinetti (2017), focus on how sound and sensorial resources can stimulate the interaction processes of children and young people with special educational needs. This work is also a preliminary research input of the Study of Clinical Interactive Cycles, integrated in the PhD in Science and Technology of the Arts (Universidade Catolica Portuguesa - Escola das Artes), in which we are developing the instrumental prototype Digital Sock as an interactive stimulus in psycho-pedagogical interventions. The theoretical basis of our research integrates different psycho-pedagogical models involving the body and the sound, on which we focus in order to develop a performance which will support this research stage and the very same instrumental prototype, which is in development. Following a both quantitative and qualitative methodology, this study is essentially based on an action-research approach, where participant observation was prioritized as a research technique. The results of the psycho-pedagogical intervention come from children and youngsters with special needs education, indicating which are the sound resources and psychomotor activities which are configured as facilitators for the development and communicational expression. The results show that these activities should be developed and applied in a medium-and long-term program, in which group action will always be the most adequate intervention approach, providing more promising international results.