The artistic activities in the curriculum of children with special educational needs

Abstract

This study stresses the importance of artistic activities (visual arts, music, drama, movement and dance) for the educational process of children with special educational needs. Having as a reference the recent legislation and the context of the Educational Reform in Portugal, it aims to understand the meaning attributed to those activities in the curriculum of a group of children with special educational needs who were integrated in regular primary schools during 1993/94 in Beja. For this purpose the analysis focuses on their educational programmes and on the perspectives of their support teachers who were responsible for both the design and implement of those programmes. Even though one cannot generalize on the basis of such study, there are some reflections that can be raised about the educational proposals that are usually made for this group of children and how educational practice can improve through adequate models of teacher training.