Avaliação das habilidades sociais de jovens com paralisia cerebral usuários de comunicação alternativa

Abstract

Interpersonal relations have been the focus of interest in various studies in the field of human and social sciences. The understanding of social and communicative processes is regarded as a key factor in the social inclusion process of physically impaired students in mainstream school. Students with cerebral palsy, with no ability to engage in effective oral communication, may be incapable to express feelings and thoughts and, consequently, their academic and social development is hindered. The goals of the present study are: (i) to adapt the Social Skills Inventory (Del Prette e Del Prette, 2005) to nonspeaking students with cerebral palsy by employing Alternative Communication resources; (ii) to verify the feasibility of the proposal of a Social Skills multimodal assessment for nonspeaking individuals with cerebral palsy, and (iii) to describe the social skills repertoire of such students. The multimodal assessment involved the application of the following instruments: the Social Skills Inventory for Nonspeaking Individuals (IHSPNO), direct observation recording of students in school social situations, parent/guardian questionnaire and interviews with school teachers. The Social Skills Inventory for Nonspeaking Individuals (IHSPNO) was applied to both students and teachers, with focus on the former. The employment of these instruments aimed at assessing how students social skills were perceived by themselves and their interlocutors. This research comprises two studies. In Study 1, regarded as a pilot study, the IHSPNO, which included twenty items presented in plank format, with images describing situations experienced in school by physically impaired people, was administered to four students. In Study 2, which replicated Study 1, this time with eight students, the final version of the IHSPNO was employed. In order to test instrument validity, the Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test (Ho to p≤ 0.02) was applied and such procedure produced satisfactory findings. Final data revealed that subjects displayed better performance in the Assertiveness, Self-control and Emotional Expression subclasses, according to both the subjects self-perception and teachers evaluation. The subjects displayed reasonable performance in the Basic Skills of Communication, Empathy, Civility and Social Academic Skills subclasses. However, there were significant deficits in Friendliness and Interpersonal Problem Solving. The multimodal assessment indicated partial perception agreement, as suggested by the related literature. The subclasses Civility, Assertiveness, Self-control and Emotional Expression indicated agreement between the two perception groups. The subclasses Basic Skills of Communication, Empathy and Social Academic Skills displayed partial agreement and the subclass Friendliness showed the need of other instruments or informants to achieve a more consistent evaluation. The present findings indicate the need for Social Skills Training for disabled individuals with cerebral palsy.