Tecnologia assistiva, educação especial e a pandemia da Covid-19: a necessidade da continuidade do suporte em tempos de isolamento social

Abstract

Inclusive Special Education promotes the regular education of students with disabilities, with resources and adaptations aimed at their educational needs. Due to the difficulty of accessing this infrastructure, remote teaching triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic intensified inequalities in the teaching-learning process. In this sense, the objective was to report the activities of the extension program PARAMEC Group when developing assistive technology resources to provide students with disabilities and their families with the necessary support for the development of academic activities in the home context. This study reports the experience of the work carried out by the PARAMEC Group to meet the demand of three students with disabilities at the Pedagogical Center of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais state, Brazil, between 2020 and 2021. The students were aged between 6 and 12 years, with two children with Down syndrome, one of them also with low vision, and a child with spastic cerebral palsy. Two tables with sloping tops and a chair with height adjustment and tubular arms were developed to solve the difficulties of carrying out educational activities in the home environment. The resources allowed independence and autonomy in carrying out school activities, minimizing the limiting factors of learning. Although social distancing has been a challenge due to the absence of face-to-face contact, the extension team has adapted using technology to effectively meet the demands without prejudice to the result of the work. It was observed that assistive technology resources act as facilitators of inclusion, reducing inequalities in the teaching-learning process during remote teaching. It was also observed that the new work format of the PARAMEC Group, at a distance and using computational resources and other strategies, brought new point of views and perspectives of action for the team.