A apropriação docente do conceito de autismo e o desenvolvimento das funções psicológicas superiores: uma análise na perspectiva da psicologia histórico-cultural

Abstract

This work is the result of a field research carried out in the Municipal Public Network of Teaching in Cascavel-PR, and aimed to seek theoretical subsidies that help in the reflection about the importance of pedagogical mediation for the learning and development of students with Autism Spectrum Disorder/ASD, as well as to understand the relationship between the teaching appropriation of the concept of Autism and the pedagogical process aiming the development of higher psychological functions. This subject is not considered as the product of a biological causality, but in its totality, as it is, in L. S. Vygotsky's (1896-1934) conception. This perspective allows an educational practice that contributes to the appropriation of culture by people, with or without disabilities, that is, of the systematized knowledge offered in the school. Other authors were invited to the debate, contributing to ratify the possibility of a teaching for all, without restrictions or additions to this or that social group. Through contact with the Municipal Department of Education and the schools of the municipal public network, 43 students with ASD enrolled in the initial years of Elementary School I, were found. For the field research, the teachers of the schools with the highest number of students were interviewed individually, with a total of 31 participants, corresponding to the 16 Teachers of Pedagogical Support (TPS) and the 15 teachers who attend these students in regular classes of teaching. The objective was to investigate how these teachers conceptualize the ASD and to reflect on the pedagogical process involving these students, contributing to deepen questions to be worked on teacher training. The analysis of the researches involving the students' learning process with ASD, developed between 2006-2016, in the Scielo and BDTD databases, is presented, synthesizing and classifying them according to their epistemological roots. Most of them are based on the behaviorist approach (22), three of them from the perspective of historical-cultural theory and one from the Piagetian perspective. We also present a brief synthesis of the conceptions of learning in these psychological currents, reaffirming the educational commitment backed by cultural historical theory. Posteriorly, the concept of ASD is presented and the conceptions of development and learning are taken from the perspective of historical-cultural psychology, which is used to analyze the data collected using Content Analysis (BARDIN, 2011). It was found that about 70% of the main teachers and 33% of the TPS´s teachers present difficulties in understanding the ASD, what hinders them from identifying the limits and the learning possibilities of these students. It is important that the teaching process enables students with and without ASD to appropriate scientific knowledge. To achieve this goal, among other demands, students need to be truly "seen". Otherwise, there is a risk of not meeting their educational needs, generating gaps in the schooling process due to the absence of adequate methodologies for the student to appropriate scientific knowledge for which the school is responsible.