Mediação lúdica no transtorno do espectro autista: Desenvolvimento de conceitos científicos algébricos

Abstract

To build an education that respects student’s differences and characteristics inherent to each student in the principles of equity and to create a school that responds to the special educational needs of its students has become a challenge in the current society. This study aims to contribute to inclusive mathematics education, mostly regarding studies about students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in mathematics. The question in the study is “How does the mediated teaching process assist the student with ADS to the development of scientific concepts?”, and the main objective is to understand how the subject’s scientific concepts are developed, via ludic mediation with pedagogical materials. The topic was the subject's learning process, as well as the process of acquiring concepts using instruments. Their school inclusion was also addressed. The research subject was a student with ASD, aged 16, who attends the 9th grade of his school in a city surrounding Campina Grande, Paraíba. The approach of this research was qualitative and it is a case study, with instruments such as semi-structured interviews, records, as well as direct and participant observations. To carry out the research, we used Lev Vygotsky's Cultural-historical theory approach. The procedures took place in three stages: observation of classes in the regular and special education (SPED) classrooms, interviews with professionals and the application of some workshops were placed individually and collectively with the subject, aiming at algebraic concepts. The results pointed to an evolution of the subject in the perspective of algebraic thinking, when initially he only dominated arithmetic thinking, mainly with instruments and signs, as well as mediation and interaction between student and colleagues. These factors enabled the development of algebraic concepts. We emphasize that inclusion is not only effective with the presence of the student with ASD in the classroom, but with their effective participation in the environment and the school’s ability to attend to and accept the differences and particularities of the students. Thus, we conclude that when working with mathematical concepts with disabled students in the regular classroom there is a great improvement, and showing how we lose working only individually, we observe that there is still a very strong stigma about the learning of people with ASD. We also emphasize that to work algebraic concepts, it is not necessary to resort to a more formal and abstract algebra and that a more recurrent look at the formation of the mathematics teacher is urgently needed to work with inclusive mathematical education.