Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) refers to a range of conditions characterised by some degree of impaired social behaviour, communication and language, and a narrow range of interests and activities that are both unique to the individual and carried out repetitively.According to the World Health Organization it is estimated that worldwide one in 160 children has an ASD. This estimate represents an average figure, and reported prevalence varies substantially across studies. Some well-controlled studies have, however, reported figures that are substantially higher. The prevalence of ASD in many low- and middle-income countries is so far unknown.The health-care needs of people with ASD are complex and require a range of integrated services, including health promotion, care, rehabilitation services, and collaboration with other sectors such as education, employment and social care.ASDs may significantly limit the capacity of an individual to conduct daily activities and participate in society. ASDs often negatively influence the person’s educational and social attainments as well as employment opportunities.Our organization as Applicant partner and the partnering organizations recognize the need to strengthen countries' abilities to promote the optimal health and well-being of all persons with ASD and find better educational solutions to those persons.Main objectives:The main objective of our project is to develop a guideline and application for our target groups, containing concrete ideas, recommendation and examples of suitable educational activities for children with special needs and to improve the skills of the target groups in the field of integrating special need children into regular school activities.The specific objectives of the project:•Improve the quality of health care services to the population with disabilities al local as well as at European Union level;•the teachers and educators of our organizations to be professionally educated and to increase their qualities as inclusive teachers;•increase their knowledge of students with disabilities, autism and other risk group of students involved in mainstream education, learn to assess the specifics of students with disabilities, autism and other risk group of students involved in mainstream education;•to learn with hands-on activities on how to conduct a preference assessment in order to identify students’ motivations and preferences;•to learn about the ABA method and learn strategies for dealing with challenging behavior in the classroom;•to learn strategies that use positive reinforcement to help successfully manage challenging behaviors not only for children with ASD but for the entire classroom;•to increase their awareness and acceptance of at-risk students (with socio-emotional problems, behavioral problems, learning difficulties, developmental disabilities, autism, etc.)The participants in the project will be professionals in the field of SEN education, teachers, PE teachers, Art and Music teachers counselors and accompanying persons, working in regular and special need schools, trainers and coaches in SEN education organizations, parents of special need children and the final target group will be the special need children who will benefit from the project.The project will result in both tangible and intangible assets. Through the implemented activities we will produce PowerPoint presentations and new tools (the guideline )for integrating children with special needs into regular school activities. Project will be branded with a project logo and project website. In addition, Facebook page and Facebook group will be created. Project results will further strengthen the cooperation between partner organizations and will ensure capacity building for the organizations involved through the participants taking part in project activities.Information brochure will be elaborated with informationa about autism and positive passwords.Two guideline books after each LTTA will be created.They will contain information about the methods that will be presented during the two LTTAs.•new knowledge and skills of target groups for integrating children with special needs into regular school activities;•bigger connection among schools with special need children and regular schools;•bigger awareness of local public authorities and associations for special need education about the importance of involving special need children;•a better understanding of social, language and cultural diversities and reactions to them after the participants take part in transnational meetings and the training where they will experience different cultures, educational systems, food, way of living and similar;•greater understanding of different educational systems in Europe, especially in the field of special need education.

"Today's curricula turn to the 21st century democratic values. The aim the project is to acquaint students with the main aspects of active citizenship related to their rights and freedoms and community obligations. Raise their respect for them and the surroundings, the environment and the virtual environment, to make them actively think through discovering problems and ideas and activities to solve. The project will have several modules, such as: 1. Local community and history, 2. Tolerance and cultural diversity, 3. Environment, 4. Social citizenship / people with disabilities, 5 e-activities /rules of work and living in the virtual space. In each module there will be interactive lessons to familiarize with the topic, search for problems around children, and try to provide solutions. For the tasks in each module, one partner is responsible. At the end of the project we will make a book ""Guide to the Little Active Citizen"" with all the ideas and activities of the children. We will produce a glossary of words used, a small net- etiquette guidebook, an e-books and children's learning activities, an interactive map, and more. All will be in eTwinning. The main participants in the project will be the children and their teachers. The participating children in the project are aged between 5 and 9 (kindergarten and elementary school). Monitoring will be part of our work all the time- when we start in the middle and the end. The dissemination will be done in the participating institutions, the region, the national and the international level. The final products will be the book ""Guide to the Little Active Citizen"", a glossary with important words, virtual exhibitions, presentations, film and more."

"Context,This project will bring together 6 Special Schools all with a slightly different area of focus and expertise but all school are aware of the social isolation of their pupils. Our project aims to tackle this issue and enable our pupils to play a more productive and involved role in our European society. Ourefforts aim to ensure we raise skill levels of these vulnerable students and have a direct and life longimpact on the connectivity with society in general.Objectives,Our key objective is to improve the social inclusion of our pupils through a range of apporaches, up skill students competencies (through staff training) enabling them tocommunicate more effectively within school, across schools and with society in general. These skillswill lessen their social isolation and enable them to connect better with everyday life. We havedevised a varied and interesting range of training and activities to raise skill levels and challenge all. The development of higher level literacy and numeracy skills are important components of this. Our objectives also include improving key competencies and skills, lessening social disadvantage and breaking down the barriers of disability.Securing these objectives will improve the life opportunities of our students and offered staff aprofessional development program demonstrating the benefits of life long learning and the realbenefits of sharing skills and expertise.Numbers & profile,the numbers of students in our 6 Special Schools vary from 100+ in the largest to approximately 60 inone other, all of the profiles show similarities in that their learning is significantly delayed, ourstudents are in need to much higher levels of support than their mainstream counterparts.Description of activities,the activities selected for training are directly related to improving student skills and competencies inthe areas of communication enabling students to get to know each other better eg social skill training. The activities and training sessionsare designed to be varied and responsive to changing times and enable students to link with others safely and to engage with society at a higher level. They are also designed to be suitable for special school pupils and crate an enthusiasm for this topic so it is seen as an enjoyable learning activitiesMethodology,All activities have already been discussed across the group and the methodologies selected have been tried and trusted in our schools and have a high success rate with ourstudents, At times it is multi sensory, at other times it may be interactive or direct teaching. Themethodology depends on the area of focus. It is also varied and engaging, the drama and dance is aninnovative and enjoyable means for students to increase their expressive skills, whilst the e-safety/ICTtraining is at the level staff and students will find interesting and enjoyable. All programs will betailored and modified to meet the needs of individual classes, pupils and staff.Likely results & impact,For a project to be worthwhile it must have a benefit and we need to gauge very carefully have effective our efforts have been. We will gauge the impact through evaluations and surveys of both staff and students and parents, we aim to raise theabilities of students to get to know each other in a number of areas, within their own classrooms, across their ownschool and between the partner schools, results will be posted on our website and agreements will beestablished in regard to the gathering of evaluations and surveys.Potential long term benefits,For our project to have been successful we need to up skill students in the process of ""Get to know me"", this will include people places and many aspects of our European society. the longer term benefits will be students who have improved key competencies and skills and lesser social isolation. We hope to share our project and its findings at alocal and regional level and also across wider educational gateways. Life long learning is animportant aspect for both student and staff and our project aims to have a longer term impact as werealize the benefits of sharing skills and expertise throughout our life journey."

Special Needs Education is not as developed as it should be in most European countries. Schools for SEN students provide limited opportunities compared to mainstream schools when it comes to special needs education, European/ International environment and living their lives to the fullest. We came to the conclusion that the sharing of good practices, brought the stakeholder countries to open a discussion on the efficacy of inclusion considering the strengths and the weaknesses, pros and cons of the different school systems. Any relevant extracurricular activities are directly connected to the personnel’s expertise and not generally implemented nationally or in a European level.The long term goal was to create life opportunities for students with special needs, at first within a school context and later within a social context as European citizens. Therefore, the need for innovative projects was relevant and necessary. The desire for a project with partners that come from special schools and mainstream schools with the inclusion of SEN students was the main reason for the establishment of this partnership. The partnership was formed by 6 countries: Slovenia, Turkey, Poland, Croatia, Portugal and Italy. All participating schools provided education to students with Special Needs, aged from 3 to 20 years old, with different diagnosis. The different school profiles, provided different points of view, represented a source of richness and fostered discussion over common difficulties in our work, common ambition to provide the best to our students and common willingness to enrich our professional competences with innovative educational methods.The combination of the different curriculum and the methodology that each school applies, provided new teaching skills which could be implemented in other schools or institutions. The detailed activities, that we have carefully planned, were of graduated difficulty, and they aimed at giving equal opportunities to every participating pupil as well as meet their interests. The students were given the chance to be aware of their self-efficacy, to strengthen their competences and to optimize their motivation. The activities were carried out through the use of : information technology, multiple means of action and expression in a second European language. Teachers used cooperative group approaches to enhance positive and social skills and strategies such as : cooperative learning, tutoring, peer teaching, scaffolding, etc. There were especially adapted materials for SEN students as well as linguistic preparation before the mobilities.The exchanged knowledge and best practices increased pupils’ skills such as Collaboration, Communication, Critical thinking and Creativity. Moreover it reinforced their knowledge and understanding of their role and identity as European Citizens. We believe that “I.D.E.A.! TOGETHER WE CAN!”offered teachers the opportunity to learn about other cultures and develope personal relations with other european teachers, above all they were given the opportunity to widen professional horizons as teachers of special education students.Each participating member worked on the project in the class, with small students groups, but also in extracurricular activities. The organization of events in special occasions with students and parents enhanced the implementation of our objectives at home and in the community.There was monitoring and assessment throughout the project,by means of questionnaires or surveys, interviews and a mascot's Diaries which helped to set deadlines and keep track of the scheduled activities.Finally, the project benefited the students, the teachers ,the whole staff of each school and the comunity. School staff met new teaching methods, tools, pedagogical approaches to learn and apply, while the community enjoyed an opportunity to fight descrimination and promote social inclusion of the SEN population. Dissemination practices were carried out throughout the project as end-products have been designed to have long-term orientation purposes:-a digital booklet will serve as a handbook of good practices for teachers at local,regional,transnational level;- Memory book will enhance best moments in the project reported by all its participants;- Mascot Diaries which reflect the work, activities, challenges, events, that took place in each school throughout the 2+1 year of the project;- display areas and exhibitions not only in our schools but in public educational events;- a site, a blog, a padlet and a public Twinspace, in which the whole project will be made visible;- workshops, Open Day ceremonies,multiplier events especially designed to involve a big number of people in the community as well as policy makers and stakeholders and disseminate the outputs realised by the project. - awarded certificates of participation and Europass certificates for both teachers andstudents.

Special Needs Education is not as developed as it should be in most European countries. Schools for SEN students provide limited opportunities compared to mainstream schools when it comes to experiencing Arts, European/ International environment and living their lives to the fullest. Furthermore, any relevant extracurricular activities are directly connected to the personnel’s expertise and not generally implemented nationally or in a European level.Therefore, the need for innovative projects that will be auxiliary to the further development of the educational systems at European level is apparent and necessary. The desire for a project with partners involved only in Special Needs Education was the main reason for the establishment of this partnership. We came to the conclusion that Arts (Music, Dance, Theater, Filming, Photography, Handcraft, Poetry) and Emotions (both recognition and expression) are not only weaved in everybody’s everyday life, but also a fine way to gain our pupils’ interest and to enrich their extracurricular cultivation. Six countries will comprise this partnership: Greece, Germany, Poland, Romania, Slovenia and Spain. All participating schools provide education exclusively to students with Special Needs, aged from 3 to 18 years old, of a varied diagnosis. These similar school profiles are of our advantage, as we have common problems and limitations in our work, common ambition to provide the best to our students and common thirst to enrich our professional repertoire with innovative educational and therapeutic methods.The combination of the different curriculum and the methodology that each school applies with Arts will provide a new therapeutic tool capable to be implemented in other schools or institutions. Also, Arts will aid the teaching of basic educational lessons such as language, maths, physics etc. This shared knowledge and best practice exchange will promote pupils’ developmental skills such as Emotional Development, Movement Skills, Learning- Thinking abilities and Communication and Language Skills. It will also facilitate our pupils’ Knowledge spectrum, Social Skills, Physical Health and Well-Being. It will strengthen their knowledge and understanding of their role and identity in the European Community. We trust that this project will be a step forward in their development concerning all aspects of life (school, family, social, personal life).We find that all of the above will, undoubtedly, advance the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. We vision that “Artemotion Xpress in Europe” will offer the opportunity to our pupils to learn about other cultures and develop personal relations with other pupils from Europe. We believe that we will be given the opportunity to implant the idea of using various kinds of Arts as a new/ contemporary learning/teaching method in special education of pupils with different kinds of disabilities.The activities that we have carefully and in detail planned are of gradated difficulty, aim to give opportunities to all pupils to participate and meet their interests from early childhood to late adolescence. We will give our pupils the opportunity to recognize their emotional reactions and to express them in several, creative ways. Worksheets, games, role playing, video projections, books, filming and creativity will help us along the way.Each participating member will work on the project in the class, but also in extracurricular activities. The organizing of events in special occasions with students and parents will enhance the implementation of our objectives at home and in the community.The project will benefit the staff of each school and the community. School staff will meet new teaching methods, tools, pedagogical approaches to learn and apply, while the community will arise opportunities for the fight against diversity and the promotion of the social inclusion and integration of SEN population. It will also acknowledge and appreciate Arts in education and its important role in the non - formal pupils' education through exhibitions, partnerships, art contests, local press publications.Our ambition for the project is to enhance our pupils’ progress in all aspects of their development, by making them the receivers of contemporary educational approaches. They will be the pioneers of various innovative educational paths. They will acquire a European identity and be accepted and embraced as equal citizens of the community, the nation and Europe.It is a project with valuable outcomes both in products and in methods for all the participants and receivers which can absolutely improve the existing educational conditions affecting not only pupils and staff but also the wider community and can make a brilliant example for imitation.