Play for the sake of play for children withdisabilities. The contribution of the LUDI network

The COST Action TD1309 “LUDI–Play for Children with Disabilities” (2014-2018) has been a network of more than 100 multidisciplinary researchers and practitioners from 32 countries, aiming at granting the right to play for every child, and specifically for children with disabilities. In fact, due to the peculiar characteristics of their functioning and to environments that are not accessible, children with disabilities might not be able to play. Also, they are more likely to get involved in play-like activities (Visalberghi, 1958) which main purpose is to rehabilitate the children, to have them gain improvements in several abilities. Then, those children are more likely to lack the possibility to play for the sake of play (Besio, 2017), i.e. to participate in intrinsically motivated activities, during which the child can make his/her own decisions about what to do, how to do it and when. Given that the possibility to freely explore the dimension of play for the sake of play is crucial for the child’s relational, cognitive, affective, and social development, LUDI spread the message that children with disabilities need to need to be included in physical, social and attitudinal contexts that can support them in their play experiences.