Sport Vision Training Academy of Collegio Sant’Ignazio 

The Digital Revolution undertaken by Collegio S.Ignazio is also making an impact on sports. Sports disciplines are being reinterpreted experimentally in a 4.0 mode thanks to the introduction of the S.V.T.A. methodology (Sport Vision Training Academy). 

For many years, the Collegio has been participating in the EDUSPORT initiative, born out of an agreement with the University of Messina, CONI, and the SVTA team. Recognizing the fundamental role of sports in the personal and cultural growth of students, and how students’ motor skills affect learning, the Collegio continues to update itself by investing in and promoting increasingly cutting-edge motor and sports activities. In this regard, the educational choice is made to promote a new method aimed at enhancing visual abilities, which significantly influence various aspects of daily life for any individual. 

Stimulating visual function is a technique known worldwide, aimed at rebalancing the visual system and bringing it back within performance expectations. Visual function is based on the laws of learning, namely in “perceptual experiences” where the subject “learns” to understand the functioning of the visual system, learning the correct methods to “control” the eyes and make them as efficient as possible for the tasks they are assigned. Through training and exercise of visual skills, students are prepared to receive and process information as quickly and efficiently as possible, predisposing them to optimize their performance with extreme precision and dexterity. Recent studies in neuroscience have highlighted that training visual skills acts on the caudal nucleus or pulvinar, stimulating balance, the vestibulo-ocular system, kinesthetic sense, motor-coordination skills, hearing, but above all cognitive abilities. 

Enhancing visual abilities means improving the process by which the brain processes images detected by the eyes. The SVTA method has proved invaluable and indispensable for students with specific learning disorders (SLD), as it allows for optimal interaction with the central nervous system. The development of the skills necessary to promote active and creative adaptation to the environment, personal autonomy, and the ability to communicate and express oneself socially, can be explained starting from the ability to internalize operational and concrete activities that allow for the formation of mental representations expressible also through verbal languages. 

Guided by Physical Education teachers, primary and secondary school students have performed numerous exercises and activities, simultaneously enhancing their own skills, such as reading, attention capacity, and social integration, consequently strengthening self-esteem and awareness of their own abilities. The activities were carried out both in the institute’s gyms and outdoors in the main courtyard, as well as in individual classrooms, equipped with didactic-sports equipment (balls, hoops, cones, elastic mats, oscillating platforms, resistance bands, obstacles, tennis balls, steps, giant balls, etc.) and the SVTA method kit (composed of a series of panels specially designed in shapes, colors, and dimensions), which, for the best outcome of the final objective, have been transformed into real sports centers. The enhancement of visual activities and the EDUSPORT project are activities that can transform, improve, and enrich the education and growth path of our students, and provide concrete support to SLD, ASD, ADHD, and BES students, improving their social interaction and autonomy. 

Prof. Roberta Caruso 
Communication Manager of Collegio Sant’Ignazio