It was discovered that three nations (i.e. Denmark, Hungary and Germany) were carrying out educational plans for deaf children of different ages. This news arrived in Scotland in 1992 during the XXI International Congress I.C.S.C. These studies are still in progress and the main aim is to show that this play activity can also be a teaching subject for children with hearing disorders.

Nobody had taken this hypothesis into account up to now even if there are many teaching methods for normo-hearing children.

Especially in the former Soviet Union chess was, and is at present, taught in school and some surveys have been carried out to highlight the advantages in the practice of this game. In 1925 three Russian psychologists I.N. Dyakov, N.V. Petrovsky and P.A. Rudik discovered something about the cognitive characteristics of the chess player and they found that he had 16 physical and psychological qualities. For many years in Italy experts on this subject have used the positive results of this research as an example in order to outline the advantages of the game and in order to propose it as a teaching method in schools.

On the grounds of these considerations, several boards began staging promotional interventions in the schools.

According to a synthesis of these experiences published by UISP it arises that teachers give the game of chess a pedagogical meaning without studying the formative and psychological aspects in the child.

Taking for granted its pedagogical importance, they concentrated on the problem of the teaching method, by describing potential technical aid and by theorizing, as other authors did, that: "chess activity allows the performance of logical and formal exercise whose difficulty is the same as mathematical and algebraic operations at a certain level. In short, these experiences are not useful to explain the didactic utility of play .

Instead of theorizing on the capabilities of a skilled player it is necessary to observe the phenomena occurring during the schooling activities with children.

In this way it is possible to affirm that all pupils prefer the expression of the formal and logical and/or creative exercises of thought.

An experimental study on the subject could lead us to overcome a deadpoint, existing in our nation, concerning the will to introduce chess as a compulsory subject in the schools, as has already happened in other nations, (former Soviet Union and United States).

I have to say that it would be of great importance if it could be taught to deaf children; in this case the problem to face would surely be more complex.

The survey was carried out with the aid of:

1) Interviews

2) Video camera

The technique used by welfare officers during the teaching method was to observe by acting as participants.

The current intervention program was structured as follow:

A) In the Gualandi Brothers School in Rome a team was formed: it was made up of two psychologists, a hearing chess trainer and a deaf chess trainer who, for two months, had been teaching chess in a class of deaf children. Gualandi School (1 Via Vincenzo Monti, Rome 00152) is a famous school for deaf children, providing teachers for full-time nursery-schools, primary-schools and secondary-schools. Children can stay there the whole week as if it were a kind of boarding school and they generally go home once- or twice-a-week.

This school is equipped with deaf and normo-hearing skilled teachers who know sign language. This school is approved by the Ministry of Public Instruction and itries, through teaching methods, to provide pupils with the most appropriate means of making the Deaf person an active member both of the civil and the ecclesiastic society.

The school takes its name from its founder Father Giuseppe Gualandi and in 1869 the Italian Government recognized it as Corporation.

The reason for creating a school for deaf-and-dumb is synthesized by the thought of its founder "the deaf-and-dumb person knows neither Jesus nor Mary" .

The School was founded thanks to a voluntary organisation; it was the only way to carry out the aim of the Mission even if subsequently it was necessary to define a the supporting structure.The voluntary organisation carried on with this aim without being overwhelmed by problems concerning bureaucracy and still today the aim of Gualandi school is to help the deaf-and-dumb.

B)

the groups were composed as follows -

- Experimental group of 9 schoolboys aged between 11 and 14 to whom chess was taught :

C. Devis;

C. Umberto;

D. A. Angelo;

G. Antonio;

G. Giuseppe;

G. Stefano;

L. Luca;

M. Cesare;

V. Stefano;

- Group of 7 deaf schoolboys aged between 11 and 14 years who performed several activities (watching TV / reading).

Controlling group:

A. Cristian;

B. Fabio;

B. Stefano;

C. Cristiano;

M. Manuel;

O. Damiano;

T. Marco;

- 4 foreign assistants of Gualandi school aged between 26 and 30 , who were graduating in Theology at Cattolica University in Rome, asked to attend the lessons with the experimental group -

R. Raul;

Z. Francisco;

S. Joad;

V. Maurizio;

C)

It was decided that the deaf permanent teacher had to be present at the lessons; together with him the team took the class considering, as the basis of the experiment, the relational rules by Rogers :

1 - Consistency (Knowledge and experience on this subject);

2 - Empathy (In the relation with the child) and for this reason a deaf-and-dumb teacher was chosen;

3 - Complete approval (both of the group and of the child);

D)

The technique used was based on the advice of M. T. Mearini and of the teacher R. Messa. According to them the most important thing to do for a child who is going to learn to play chess is to make him capable of playing as soon as possible and of learning the rules through practice;

E)

The teaching method used took into account different learning strategies according to different difficulty levels. The psychological theories - describing the learning of concepts and especially the definition according to which a concept is defined by one or more attributes connected to one rule - were followed.

By attribute we mean any characteristic of an object or of an event that can change considerably at any moment and that the mechanisms that occur to learn concepts are :

1) The discovery of the pertinent attributes;

2) The discovery of the rules that put them in relation to attributes;

3) The verification of hypothesis:

4) The utilisation of strategies;

The difficulty levels depend on the number of attributes composing a given concept; on the easiness by which a rule can be expressed; on the possibility of resorting to tests and to the use of learning strategies.

We have considered the first level, characterized by :

a) Few attributes, b) Expression of the rule without exception, c) Immediate check possibility d) Lack of learning strategies.

The task of the first level is to provide the child with a enough theoretical information necessary to start the game. Generally this theoretical learning phase is determined by a casual approach and it is very brief.

At the beginning the child remembers only the name of some of the pieces and the movement (forward) of the Pawn and of the Knight. During the practice, the child asks the teacher several times for an explanation about the name of a piece and how a piece must be moved.

The first phase ends when the child is able to start playing with at least one or two pieces. At this level the game ends with the capture of the adversary's King and during this first phase it is not necessary to know that the game may also end in a draw.

The task of the first level was to make the child capable of playing immediately.

The second level is characterized by: a) few attributes, b) Expression of rules without exceptions c) Possibility of check by using concepts already acquired at the beginning d) Learning strategies (mnemonics).

During this phase the child discovers, through practice, some exceptions to the rules concerning the movements of all pieces and he discovers the different value of the pieces.

The third level is characterized by:

a) Greater number of attributes, b) Rough rules, c) Impossibility of heuristic check d) Strategies for learning the game.

During this phase the theoretical teaching is complete and the subsequent phase is characterized by the definition of stalemate, checkmate, draw, the won game and in more advanced levels of the first concepts useful to perform strategies in the game and the discovery of the time factor.

In conclusion, the team taught chess one day a week in the experimental class (on Wednesday). 8 lessons were given and each of them lasted two hours.

The time was divided as follow:

1° Hour - Theory:

a- Basis and rules(1° Level; 2° Level);

b- Solution of problems (1° Level; 2° Level);

Subsequently under experiment:

c- Plans and Strategies of play (3° Level);

c1- The Opening;

c2- The Centre-game;

c3- The Closing;

c4- The Time (the clock)

2ø Hour - Practice;

a- Gaming-table;

b- Match recording;

c- Comment and analysis of the match.

At the beginning our didactic aim was to make children capable of reaching at least the second level considering that those who passed the first and the second level cannot play chess properly but they will be able, in short, to learn the game.

The comparison between observations and success of the didactic aim are the topic and the comparison subject with the hypothesis of the research.

The first three lessons were held on the following days:

03/03/93

10/03/93

17/03/93.

Teaching aids were handed out, consisting of four chess-boards, four chess-sets, a wall chessboard and four chess clocks.

The first lesson was spent in introducing the team to the pupils and in verifying the didactic knowledge of the children. Those belonging to the experimental group were able to write and to read, while among the children who did not take part in the lesson only one of them seemed to be isolated from the group, who seemed to avoid any relation with the team, he did not want to take part in the game and he went away whenever he was called or invited to participate.

Together with the pupils a poster was prepared where all the main rules of the pieces were written. (1° Level)

There were some of them who already knew some rules of the 1° level.

The deaf chess player did not attend the lesson while there was the deaf chess school teacher.

The controlling group could optionally attend the lessons or watch television programs (most of all sporting events) or perform several activities (football, bagatelle table, Ping-Pong).

During these lessons the feedback passed from:

Hearing chess teacher ---> deaf teacher -----> pupil;

Pupil ---> deaf teacher -----> Hearing chess teacher.

Within an hour the pupils had learned the first-level theoretical rules. Their understanding was obviously not complete but with practice they improved their skill.

After a first revision, the second lesson helped pupils to put into practice what they had learned. The pupils already asked questions about exceptions and about the pieces' values, thus beginning to perform the first exchanges and strategies plans of the match.

The third lesson brought them to the 2° level. They were trained to face their first in-house tournament.

The deaf-and-dumb school-teacher, who was not able to play chess, was forced to use a handbook in order to answer the questions when we were not present.

Moreover the children wanted to have chessboard to use after the play activity. Assistants were involved in the game with children also during our absence.

With this teaching method the second-level rules were learned after only three lessons. It would have been useful to have had a chess handbook so that teachers could have used it as instrument to shorten the learning period.

The following is the forms used to interview the Gualandi teachers and the assistants who took part in the teaching method before and after its development:

1. Are you able to play chess?

a. Yes b. No

2. Do you think that the game of chess is a didactic instrument?

a. Yes b. No

3. Do you think that the game of chess is a sporting activity?

a. Yes b. No

4. Do you consider the game of chess fair a game?

a. Yes b. No

5. Do you think the game of chess helps children to become more sociable?

a. Yes b. No

6. Could you list a number of games whose rules are known by all pupils?

a. Yes b. No

Description:

7. Are you in favour of a didactic experience of the game of chess in your class?

a. Yes b. No

Why ?

The aim of these interviews was to know the teachers' thoughts about the game of chess, about games in general, and eventually about games as didactic instruments.

These answers show a sort of discredit about using games in schools , even if teachers know very well the importance of play activity for children.

Children who play a lot in schools are accepted but they are considered immature and without practical sense.

After the experiment, this attitude seems to change; the teachers begin considering the usefulness and the practical aspect of games because they are valid instruments which allow the solution of complex problems with hard exercises and the children accept them because they are an amusing activity. In the end something curious happens! Teachers show a sporting emotional involvement in the activity - it is the same involvement shown by children.

For many children who attended the chess lessons, this was really their first experience. At the first lesson all of them were very curious because of the novelty of the subject.

I realised that they could neither understand words when they were pronounced nor were they interested in learning new ones. On the contrary when they used the language of gestures they were able to understand the meaning of new concepts, as for example the colours (White and Black), the 32 different pieces of the chessboard (Queen, King, Knights, Bishops, Rooks, Pawns) and also abstract concepts such as the defence and attack strategies. Then I discovered that pupils pay great attention to their teacher (that is me) because he speaks to them through sign language which is very easy to understand (that is within their grasp) and perfectly appropriate to their understanding capacities.

But many difficulties are encountered when lessons are given orally by an hearing teacher. In this case it is not easy for the child to understand and for this reason I affirm that it is necessary to use sign language in order to make us understood. Teachers and pupils get on well together thanks to the easy power of communication and to the simple relation. The teacher very often thinks that pupils can understand very soon but he is making a mistake. It is clear that children always have a competitive personality in fact they do not want to loose perhaps because if they win they will acquire more self-confidence. It is certain that the pupils were very interested in this subject and they seemed to have a special inclination. I came to the conclusion making some considerations about the usefulness of this research. Considerations allow teachers to better their teaching method, but most of all I am convinced that this sporting instrument is appropriate for the deaf-and-dumb child both for his intellective development and for improving sociability.

I think that this research will create curiosity and interest and many people are waiting eagerly for the results.

I was asked to take part in this research project as a chess trainer for the normo-hearing children and as a participant of a Cultural Association for the deaf-and-dumb (ASIS). During the first meeting at Gualandi I realised that there was a strong concealment with the adults of ASIS. When a pupil did not understand what I wanted to explain (I know just a few gestures of the International Sign Language - L.I.S.) he looked at me without reacting and avoided to ask his classmates for help. On the contrary at ASIS , when something like this occurred there was very soon an exchange of information (both vocal and through gestures) to solve the problem. Thus at the beginning the only way for me to communicate with children was to resort to assistants who know L.I.S.. Subsequently, when I acted as adviser and no longer as trainer (suggesting the most appropriate movement or the solution of chess problems), the children showed great affection for me.

Every child tried to draw my attention to himself (by offering sweets, ice-creams and chocolates) and if I gave an advice to the adversary the other child feels themselves betrayed. So it was necessary to reassure them.

During the OPEN tournament only one fact happened that broke the general harmony. When a normo-hearing girl (son of a person with hearing troubles) was about to loose because of a game anomaly during a game with a little boy with hearing troubles, she ACCUSED the referee of helping the deaf boy because of his handicap and contesting the explanation of all rules.

After prize giving it was time to say goodbye. All the children and their school-teachers were excited because of the results obtained. The children affected by hearing troubles who in the next year would have attended another school, worried about their attending a specialisation course. At the end I was so involved that, as any good mother would do, I cooked a cake to give a party to all my "children".

The transition from a particular concept of education to a culture of integration damaged our society and, only apparently, solved some problems related to handicaps and to schools. Especially for the deaf-and-dumb there are still deep operational gaps that were not filled with school-rules. The "forced" integration that lacks operational tools seems to lead us to paradoxical solutions - pupils are asked to adapt themselves to the rest of the class. As far as the deaf-and-dumb are concerned this situation is more astonishing because the language code is different but there is the potential ability to communicate. For a long time, even in particular schools it has been considered correct to avoid sign language and to use "vocal" language and lip-reading. The reason for this was a pseudo-pedagogical one, by denying a precious communication instrument most of all inside the deaf-and-dumb groups.

Sometimes we had the temptation to use either sign language or "vocal" language while the use of both is an obvious solution even if it is discussed. Sign language can solve communication problems inside a deaf-and-dumb group but the problems of heterogeneous groups still remains. Considering the success of this experimentation a new hypothesis can be proposed, i.e. to organize a didactic space bound to the game inside which it is possible to communicate with gestures and inside which a deaf-and-dumb teacher is present.

Observing some children attending Gualandi school, some curious facts emerged :

1) during the game each child preferred a piece and moved it more often than the other pieces. I wondered which was the psychological meaning of it, if the choice was made (1° hypothesis) because the piece could be moved by following simple criteria or if (2° hypothesis) they used a particular strategy. Also the psychologist Cucca W. F concentrated on this problem carrying out a research on the reason why very few women played chess. The psychologist's consideration, with which I agree, eliminate the first hypothesis. It is true that children at the beginning used the pieces that they could move easier than other, as the Pawn or the King, but as soon as they were able to move all the other pieces without difficulty, they used one of them during the game. It is clear that this choice is related to personality, to real motivations, to an aesthetic pleasure, or according to Cucco, there are some psychoanalytical reasons. The choice of the initial movements witnessed the presence of a cognitive style. So I wondered whether, by knowing the strategy used, it is possible to define the learning attitude of the child at school.

This hypothesis becomes valid if it is possible to define an interdisciplinarity between chess and other schooling subjects.

At the first Conference on Mathematics and Chess some solutions were proposed. All considerations related to the value of pieces, to the solution of problems have been considered as mathematics operations and, as far as the behaviour during the game is concerned, the first thought was that the choices are regulated by the calculus of probability that a given event will occur. While we are waiting for a longitudinal experiment that we are going to carry out a doubt still remains - i.e. whether through practice it is possible to fill those syntactic and semantic gaps that today a deaf-and-dumb student affected by slight deafness may have.

2) concentrating on the first consideration we pointed out that after a few matches the pupil was able to have his own initial strategy by making choices that were different from those made by the other members of the group.

We should have expected, especially in this teaching method, where the rules taught are made of very simple concepts, that the children imitated one another when they made their first moves.

On the contrary this happened when in imitating the move of an adversary there were symmetric positions on the chessboard. The lack of meaning of this position confused the player who copied the move. This meant no longer being able to control plans during the games and it also meant defeat. This observation was not considered any more; the imitative process of learning was given up by the adversary who did not use it as a simple "copy" but as "search" for the meaning or for the strategy used by the adversary. Thus copying meant using complex strategies and plans.

The game of chess more than any other game or school teaching aid leads to new didactics which help the acquisition of cognitive models by decoding the meaning of experiment through practice during the game.

The adversary is seen as an information source who confirms (or does not confirm) the efficiency of the strategies used. However the player begins to understand that it is useless to copy the move of the adversary. In the meantime he understands that it will be necessary to learn the strategies by imitating them but by using new techniques in the move. In this way the child understands the "if" during the learning, by deciding the moves to perform, by helping the decisional process, by using his owns techniques to detect mistakes;

3) all children "grew up" during the teaching; in a few lessons they were able to learn complex concepts. It means that apart from the educational level and capabilities of the single child, everybody has shown a growth. Other schooling subjects do not allow students to learn with such a vivid imagination as with chess. When some problems require a mathematic solution, the result expected is settled in advance, just as in learning a poem the aesthetic pleasure of world is already settled by others. On the contrary a child likes to create new positions, to discover many possibilities while he is playing chess, even if he must use defined rules. While he is playing chess he has not to wonder frequently whether he is right or wrong. In this way he progresses with enjoyment and begins to know the subject very well. He goes so far as to express himself through unexpected cognitive styles and he succeeds in learning earlier than adults with greater common schooling knowledge as shown by the results obtained after competing with the undergraduates.

4) it was discovered that all children have a natural inclination for play. This is a natural inclination in children who have always been allowed to express themselves through symbolic methods as for example sign language. But I think that it is not the only cause of children's inclinations. I am convinced that there is a "need of psychological hunger" that the child, school and society cannot satisfy through appropriate stimulus.

The Deaf-and-dumb bear society a great grudge because it did not allow them to spread their culture through the creation of universities or of independent associations. The cause of this regret must be found in the dissatisfaction and the impossibility for them to grow up from the cultural point of view;

5) before this experience many deaf children encountered difficulties when put in touch with normo-hearing children of the same age. This unchained static behaviour in social relation, and also the relation with the school group, was difficult. Gualandi School was psychologically in a condition of social inconsistency. The cognitive growth of the game affected the child's self-esteem positively by strengthening the self-confidence, permitting competition with normo-hearing children. The Open tournament was held without hindrances among heterogeneous groups that had the teaching method in common. It was not necessary to find a common language among children because the only abstract interpreter of communication was the game; it was clear that the fanciful ways of play activity did not need any translation but they were already pre-existent in the children;

6) all children of Gualandi School attended a boys' boarding school that put up them five days in a week; they obviously hold trainer and psychologists in high esteem. They always tried to draw the teacher's attention to them and they tried to buy the female presence with small presents. It is a clear and natural unsatisfied need of mother-love;

7) It often happened that the children were stunned after a new explanation or after a new question if the teacher was an hearing person. The child's expression was uncertain and he seemed to wait for further information. This is a clear deadline as far as the different way of communication is concerned. Experts in this subject affirm that the deaf-and-dumb cannot understand interrogative sentences. The deadline can be complete whenever one tries to overcome the problem of conversation by using the written language that for the deaf-and-dumb can be as much as incomprehensible as the spoken one if abstract concepts must be explained. The only thing to do in order to face the deadline was to involve either the deaf-and-dumb teacher or the deaf-and-dumb chess trainer. This stunning behaviour in the school cannot be solved by teachers and it sometimes happens that the child is marked for ever as idiot or handicapped child. It is a consideration that, in my opinion, should be reversed. It also happens that in order to demonstrate the existence of this handicap some intelligence tests are used to check the communication skill of the child. The considerations made till now confirm that play is very important in teaching methods and they bring about hypothesis and problems that must be verified. These considerations together with the co-operators' thought bring about pedagogical, psychological and social problems. The meaning of all interventions highlight the difficulty of the deaf child in performing the "if". In order to face this problem two points of view were outlined:

1)The cultural point of view according to which it is necessary to study the problem at its source in order to be able to find solutions. It is clear that there is lack of theoretical integration.

For this reason it necessary to try an find new solutions;

2) the instrumental point of view, according to which it is the difficulty to collect information in a social environment created for hearing people which prevents the right enforcement of compulsory schooling for deaf. In order to permit a complete informative integration it is necessary to introduce sign languange into schools

Both points of view seem to be insufficient. We know a lot about hearing disorders as far as the medical-psychological aspect is concerned and we can also define which are the teaching methods to be used with the deaf child. If this is not done there are probably other problems. We have to say that the use of a communication tool replaced by another one is sufficient enough if it is a panacea of the problems in question. On the contrary I am convinced that if the teaching method used in Italian schools changes, there will be immediate and positive results. I came to this conclusion after the following considerations:

A) there is a psychological problem, known by everybody, that is defined as social problem. But this definition is incorrect. However, this problem is the sense of guilt that this society feels toward the deaf and it is the same as a mother feels when she refuses to love a handicapped son. The fact of offering presents or something else to eliminate this negative sensation is a consequence of this. But in this way with inadequate causes we prevent the deaf to become independent. This is what happens in Italy in a pathologic school where deaf teachers are not taken into account and where they are replaced totally by teachers experts in sign language

On the ground of these considerations a new rule related to integration was developed: according to this rule, the family chooses the school and the handicapped son feels the social guilt and the ignorance of the family. A clear example is to prevent the deaf child to attend a specialized school for deaf-and-dumb and to integrate him in a common school. The justification is that for the child it is easier to live in a world where he cannot communicate and which does not offer models to follow. It is a wrong and banal concept. It is the only explanation because more often it is the disabled sons of deaf parents who attend special schools, by taking from them a sure schooling advantage. The parents accept and respect the son and do not feel a sense of guilt for having generated him and are more interested in their own needs.

B) despite of the fact that experts have been showing for long the importance of play for the development of child personality, the teachers during lessons do not play with children and they do not consider this practice useful for children. I cannot say that this situation exists in all schools, but this is a result that came out from our interviews. A subsequent experiment could clarify the entity of the problem. If this were so, the current pedagogical practice was surpassed by psychological and humanistic theories 40 years ago ! However Gualandi School is in the lead as far as the enforcement of compulsory schooling of pupils with hearing troubles is concerned.

I wonder whether this attitude towards play is an old and aristocratic way of teachers to consider the pupil or whether it is a cultural ignorance. In both cases the compulsory introduction of a play subject would help teaching to help to better relations.

These considerations lead me to integrate the earlier observations of the welfare officers by affirming that, at present, it is necessary to carry out a renewal project for deaf children, using a teaching method based on relations.

In this case it is right to further a teaching method based upon a subsequent development of the pupil's autonomy also with the aid of play disciplines that better the creative and sporting aspect of the child - such as the game of chess.

By play subject we mean a teaching activity that uses the wonderful qualities of a child by improving the creative and cognitive growth.

The physical training cannot be considered as a play subject especially because its aim is correct physical development, through the practice of sporting disciplines.

We cannot help considering that the school must satisfy the main needs related to the different ages offering pupils some real cultural models to follow. It is incredible that today there are still prehistoric classes made up of women or men and with either a female or male teacher without deaf personnel. I am convinced that this experience raised a new problem that somebody has long wanted to solve : The problem of the deaf-and-dumb.

1.1.1 Preface 1

1.1.2 Introduction 2

1.1.3 Innovation and utility of the research 4