A comunicação alternativa/aumentativa para a interação de estudantes com transtorno do espectro do autismo na escola

Abstract

Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder - ASD often have deficits in language and communication, which makes it difficult to understand and be understood in social interactions. To enable communication for the student with ASD, one of the possible Assistive Technology supports is Alternative Communication. The Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC) is one of the Assistive Technology areas which involves the use of systems that may offer students with disabilities the complementation or the enlargement of the ability to communicate. In this sense, the present study aimed to investigate the contributions of alternative/augmentative communication resources to the interaction processes of students with ASD with teachers at school. As methodology, this is a qualitative exploratory research, of the Case Study type: involving as instrument of data collection the semi-structured interview carried out remotely, by remote communication application with teachers of the Specialized Educational Service that already makes or had made use of the AAC with their students. For the data analysis, we used the content analysis proposed by Laurence Bardin, with the survey of four categories: alternative communication resources used by teachers with students with ASD; strategies and processes to expand the use of AAC in the communication of autistic students at school; relevance of AAC for the communicative interaction of students with ASD at school and in learning; challenges and perspective for the use of AAC at school. The research participants cited the challenges they face in using AAC, with respect to the regular classroom teachers, the parents, and the students with ASD themselves. However, all of them reported the importance of using AAC for the communicative interaction of the student with ASD, the contribution to learning and the development of communicative autonomy. Based on the results found, a guiding document for the use of AAC with students with ASD in schools was elaborated. Thus, it is expected to contribute to the use of CAA as a communication resource with students with ASD in schools.