O direito de comunicar, por que não? Comunicação alternativa aplicada à pessoas com necessidades educacionais especiais no contexto de sala de aula

Abstract

A child who is unable to speak is certainly deprived from an essential ability to reach the complete development as a human being. The use of Alternative Communication resources as manual gestures, facial and body expressions, graphic symbols and digitalized or synthesized voice make face-to-face communication possible. The purpose of this research study was to evaluate the effects of the introduction of Alternative Communication resources in the social interaction of students, teachers and other professionals from a special school for mentally retarded and multiple handicapped children and youth. The research, which lasted a whole school year and was composed by three studies, involved ten pupils, the classroom teacher, and waiter as subjects. The introduction of the Alternative Communication graphic systems was conducted through the use of incidental teaching procedures (Warren e Rogers Warren, 1985). A quasi-experimental single subject research design was employed in the three studies, which were composed by three-phases: baseline, teaching and follow-up. All experimental sessions were recorded in videotape and were transcribed verbatim. In the first study, developed in 11 experimental sessions, the students were taught to employ pictograms to ask for permission not only to attend basic needs, such as, going to the school cafeteria, to the bathroom, to drink water, to listen to music, etc, but also to perform certain activities in the classroom. In the second study, which involved 56 sessions, the students were taught to use the graphic system to select food items at snack time. Prior to the study, these students were not allowed to choose food items at the mealtime. In this study, the waiter was also taught to facilitate the use of graphic symbols by the students. Finally, in the third study, conducted in 10 experimental sessions, the pictograms were employed to favor students active participation during the story telling time, as well as, their answers to questions designed to evaluate their comprehension about the stories. In fact, the students turned out to use the alternative communication system to express their desires and thoughts to their peers, as well as to their teachers and schools personnel. It seems that the possibility to use the pictograms has encouraged them to intentionally communicate with both vocal and verbal responses. Data analyses have demonstrated the efficacy of the incidental teaching procedures to both acquisitions maintenance of using graphic symbols associated to other communication modes, such as gestures, vocalizations, and verbalizations during the proposed school activities.