PEI Italy: What the Piano Educativo Individualizzato Actually Is

If you have moved to Italy with a child who has an IEP from another country, you have probably already been told by the school that it doesn't apply here. What you need instead is a PEI — a Piano Educativo Individualizzato, or Individualized Educational Plan.

The name sounds familiar, but the PEI is not a direct equivalent of a US IEP or a UK EHCP. It lives within a different legal and medical system, it is written by a different kind of team, and it covers things the American or British versions typically do not. Understanding the differences will help you participate meaningfully in the process instead of just nodding along at meetings.

What the PEI Actually Is

The PEI is the central document governing your child's educational experience in an Italian state school under Law 104/1992. It defines the goals, the teaching adaptations, the support hours, and the evaluation criteria for a student with a certified disability.

"Certified" is the key word. In Italy, a PEI can only exist after your child has been officially recognized as having a disability through the national health and social security system. Without that certification, the school has no legal basis to write a PEI, request a support teacher, or ask for state-allocated support hours.

This is the fundamental difference from the US system, where a school can evaluate a child and write an IEP internally. In Italy, the school waits for external medical authorities to complete their process first.

The ICF Framework

Italy updated its national PEI model in 2020 through Interministerial Decree 182. The new model adopts the World Health Organization's International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) framework.

This matters because the ICF shifts the focus from the child's medical deficits to the interaction between the child and their environment. Instead of only documenting what a child cannot do, the PEI must identify the environmental "barriers and facilitators" within the school — things like noise levels, classroom layout, seating arrangements, peer dynamics, and the availability of assistive technology.

The reasoning is that inclusion is not just about placing a child in a mainstream class. It is about actually modifying the environment to reduce barriers.

In practice, this means a well-written PEI should look at the school context as actively as it looks at the child. For expat families, it also means you can advocate for specific environmental changes — not just more hours — as part of the PEI.

The Four Dimensions of the PEI

Every PEI under the 2020 model covers four core dimensions of the student's development:

1. Socialization and Interaction — How the child builds peer relationships, manages emotions, and participates in play and group activities. For children with autism or social communication difficulties, this dimension often carries the most specific goals.

2. Communication and Language — Both expressive and receptive communication, including the use of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems. If your child uses a communication device or picture exchange system, this is where it belongs.

3. Autonomy and Orientation — Personal hygiene, navigating the school building, and executive functioning tasks. For children with significant disabilities, this often determines whether they qualify for an additional support figure (an OEPAC assistant) beyond the standard insegnante di sostegno.

4. Cognitive, Neuropsychological, and Learning — Academic goals tailored to the child's specific profile. This is where the PEI specifies whether the child follows the standard curriculum with modifications (equipollente path) or a fully differentiated curriculum (differenziato path). The difference between these two paths has major consequences for high school exit qualifications.

Who Writes the PEI

The PEI is not written by the school alone. It is produced by the Gruppo di Lavoro Operativo (GLO) — a formal collaborative team that includes all of your child's curricular teachers, the support teacher, specialists from the ASL (local health authority), the school principal or delegate, and you, the parent.

Crucially, parents are voting members of the GLO. You are not invited to listen and sign. You have the legal right to participate in setting the goals, to request changes to the draft, and to bring private specialists (including English-speaking neuropsychologists or therapists) into the room.

The GLO must meet at least three times per school year: at the beginning to draft the PEI, mid-year to review progress, and in June to plan support hours for the following year.

If you simply show up, nod, and sign whatever is put in front of you, you have legally agreed to whatever the school proposed. Many expat families, unsure of the language and the process, do exactly this — and later discover the support hours are lower than their child needs, or that goals were set without clinical input.

Before You Sign: What to Check

Take the draft PEI home before signing. Request a translated version or enough time to review it with a bilingual professional if needed. Specifically check:

The support hours. The number of weekly hours assigned to your child is stated in the PEI. It should reflect the level of need established in the ASL medical commission's documentation. If the hours seem low, ask the GLO to explain how they were calculated. Schools sometimes propose reduced hours due to staffing constraints, not clinical need — but this is not a valid reason under Italian law.

The curriculum path. Whether your child follows an equipollente (equivalent, standard-diploma) path or a differenziato (modified, non-standard-diploma) path must be explicitly stated. The differenziato path cannot be imposed without your explicit consent. If you do not sign off on it, the school cannot put your child on a curriculum that will prevent them from accessing university.

Compensatory tools and dispensatory measures. These are the practical accommodations listed in the PEI — text-to-speech software, extra time, calculators, exemption from reading aloud. They should match what your child's clinical evaluations indicate they need.

Measurability of goals. Italian law and ICF methodology encourage goals that are specific and measurable. Vague goals like "improve social participation" are hard to evaluate at the mid-year review. Push for goals with observable outcomes.

What Happens If You Move Regions

Italy's PEI is nationally standardized in format since the 2020 reform, which helps with continuity when families relocate within the country. However, the support hours attached to the PEI are allocated by the regional educational office, and regional differences in funding mean the same diagnosis can yield different hours in Lombardy versus Calabria.

Your child's INPS certification and ASL documentation remain valid when you move. The new school convenes a new GLO and writes a new PEI, but it uses the same underlying medical documentation. You do not need to restart the entire certification process.

The PEI and the Pagella (Report Card)

Italian grading runs on a 1–10 scale. For students with a PEI, grades on the report card reflect the customized goals in the PEI, not standard national curriculum benchmarks.

A grade of 8 for a student on a highly differentiated path means they achieved 80% of their individualized PEI goals, not that they are performing at "8" relative to neurotypical peers. This distinction matters enormously for understanding your child's progress and for deciding whether the goals themselves are appropriately ambitious.

For students with DSA (dyslexia, dyscalculia), evaluation must explicitly account for the use of compensatory tools listed in their PDP — they are graded on content knowledge, not spelling accuracy or calculation speed.

The Italy Special Education Blueprint covers the complete process from INPS certification through GLO meeting preparation and PEI development — including a bilingual glossary of Italian special education terms, step-by-step guidance on the ASL pathway, and practical questions to bring to your first GLO meeting.

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