A Comunicação Alternativa e Ampliada como intervenção na escola em casos de crianças com mutismo seletivo

Abstract

Selective mutism is a rare anxiety disorder considered and affects school age children. The main characteristic is persistent speech failure in some specific social situation but not in others. The researched literature mentions resources and interventions with alternative and augmentative communication in people incapable of communicating using speech, due to some disorders such as cerebral palsy and autism. However, selective mutism is not a disorder but a behavioral pattern that strongly compromises the affected individuals communication, especially in school. This study aimed to plan, execute and evaluate resources and proceedings of low technological alternative and augmentative communication, associated to contingencies management, in the school context, in two children, female, seven and eleven years old, identified as Laura and Bianca. The study took place in a public school of Rio de Janeiro. We used an A-B intra-subject quasi-experimental study design with the following methods: 1. Application of mutism evaluation instruments in the participants parents and teachers, aiming to identify the disorder characteristics; 2. Disorder diagnosis based on the analysis of the instruments; 3. Observation of videos in two school environments; 4. Elaboration of proceedings and intervention, and resource to be used in this phase; 5. Individual sessions: Laura completed all 20 intervention sessions; while Bianca participated of only 15. Data revealed that Laura used writing as alternative communication, and even though she completed all the 20 intervention sessions, she presented little adherence to the proposed activities and reach partially the goal of frequently speech at school during the research period. On the other hand, Bianca showed high level of involvement in the activities, resources and proceedings performed planned for her. Using both written communication and communication boards, the students reached the proposed goal of the study when they began to communicate orally with classmates and their teacher - where one of them obtained, at the end of the interventions, the best result