Habilidades sociais e deficiência intelectual: influência de um programa de educação física baseado na cultura corporal

Abstract

People with Intellectual Disabilities (ID) may have impaired social skills due to difficulties associated with adaptive behavior, which is a determining factor in their development. Social skills, and adaptive behavior, are linked to the process of adaptation of the individual to society and the behavior stems from the culture and the prevailing social norms. Given the relationship between culture and social skills, justified the adoption of critical- surmounting approach as theoretical and methodological basis of this study. Through body movements originating in culture, is intended to encourage the social skills of people with ID. Considering the possibility of inter-relationship between social skills and body culture, the following question arises: a program of physical education based on the principles of body culture can assist in the development of social skills? The aim of the study was to investigate the influence of a physical education program based on the principles of physical culture on the social skills of children with intellectual disabilities. Under qualitative-quantitative approach, it is a field research, the type of study program evaluation. The population was composed of children and adolescents with intellectual disability, the sample comprised 16 children and youth enrolled in a special school in a city in the interior of São Paulo. Children and adolescents participating in the study, belonging to two different classes, were evaluated by three teachers: the conductor/teacher responsible for the class, the teacher of Body Expression and Physical Education, through the instrument of the Social Skills Rating System (SSRS-BR), administered before and after an intervention program in physical education from the perspective of body culture. The program developed by the researcher consisted of 24 sessions lasting 40 minutes each, over 2 months of intervention. During the intervention was employed participant observation, recorded systematically by field diary and footage as an additional tool for data collection. The information obtained through the SSRS-BR were analyzed quantitatively by JT method, the data from the field diary were discussed based on content analysis. Through the analysis of the results showed that the program exerted influence on all classes of social skills developed in both groups A and B. In the postintervention assessment of the overall social skills kind of 16 participants, 12 reached a reliable positive change. Thus, we conclude that the program of Physical Education, based on body culture, was effective in the development and/or improvement of social skills in a positive, in children and adolescents with intellectual disabilities.