Aliada ou Vilã? O papel da Comunicação Alternativa e Ampliada no desenvolvimento da linguagem de crianças com TEA

Abstract

The present research has aimed to check the impacts on the language development of ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) children who present complex needs in communication once they were oriented to use the Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC), specifically by PECS – Adapted program. And yet, promote the importance of the presence of the speech-language pathologist along with the school in order to elaborate inclusion strategies of the ASD student, articulating knowledges in Health and in Education, and analyse the process for wich the AAC used on the terapy could be enlarged to school. Three children aging four to six years old who were once diagnosed with ASD and also presented complex communication needs have been a part of this study. In addition to eight professionals from the schcools where these children studied. Due to its interdisciplinary character, this study has beed sectioned into two individual moments named: “Step I” and “Step II”. Both steps have been perfomed with the same children, however they took place in diferente sceneries (Health and Education, respectively). Step I was held on a Psychosocial Care Center for Children and Adolescents and sought to analyze the language development on each child individually through a quasi-experimental design delineation, A- B type. The Step II research has taken place on the children’s education facilities where they studied and it counted on the regular classroom teachers, their mediators and also the Resource Room teachers´participation. On the Step II context, a qualitative research was conducted and it analyzed the child use of the AAC on the school unit. The research has shown through its quantitative analysis that the use of AAC brought communicative benefits for some participants, impacting the course of their language development. It has been observed that after the use of the AAC, a growth on the number of children’s emission of words and sentences whereas the other two participants have maintained the same characteristics of their vocalizations. The qualitative analysis which was performed at the children’s school demonstrated the challenges the children found in order to obtain effectiveness of the AAC in shcool evironment, mainly due to the quality of the education which have directly impacted on the use of the AAC with the children at school screnery. The research has revealed the relation between the AAC Method use and the language development of small children with ASD and emphasized the benefits observed from the interdisciplinary work between School and Health spheres in order to include ASD children. It is suggested that further research seeks to analyze the linguistic process envolved on the language development if the ASD children who use the AAC and the importance of the interdisciplinar actions on the Inclusion Process of these children.