Disabilities In Brazil Research Articles

Can a blind person play dodge ball? Enacting body and cognition with a group of youths with visual disabilities

This paper presents some results of research carried out with a group of blind and partially sighted youths who are enrolled in a school for people with visual disabilities in Brazil. This research aims to promote different articulations between the body and cognition. Based on actor–network theory, it considers that having a body means learning to be affected by widely differing actors. The field research was carried out through body expression activities, which seek to promote connections between the body and heterogeneous materials, such as a ball, a rattle or a colleague. The paper indicates that cognition is the effect of these collective body experiences. It also underlines that these body experiences have produced new ways of knowing amongst the blind and partially sighted youths. In the conclusion it is stressed that psychology research on disability must be done with (and not about) people with visual disability.1

Accessibility in digital television: designing remote controls

Free to air television is still an important tool to provide information and communication in many countries. Therefore, the universal access to the television system is very important. This paper presents a set of Digital Television accessible remote control devices designed for the Brazilian Digital Television. A research was conducted, interviewing people with disabilities in Brazil. Three remote control models were proposed, consolidating the main identified requirements, being accessible for a diverse group of impairments.

Pessoas com deficiência e políticas de saúde no Brasil: reflexões bioéticas

The purpose of this article is to analyze the dilemma of allocation of public funds to the healthcare of people with disabilities in Brazil from a bioethical standpoint. The concept of disability and the legal framework are presented; the question of budgetary constraints and theoretical bioethics references about this issue are discussed; and the role of Bioethics of Protection and Bioethics of Intervention is stressed. It is concluded that, because of their vulnerability, people with disabilities should be protected by the state and funds must be allocated to guarantee their access to healthcare services. However, in spite of the existing legal basis, the actual destination of public funds to people with disabilities still depends on other factors, among others social and political participation of the disabled persons themselves in the negotiation of healthcare policies.

Community-based Rehabilitation (CBR) and the Social Inclusion of People with Disabilities: The Brazilian Experience

This article describes and examines possible links between the difficulties experienced by people with disabilities in Brazil and the Community-Based Rehabilitation (CBR) proposal, which is understood here as a set of practices aimed at expanding access to health care and rehabilitation. It reports some experiences developed in Brazilian cities such as projects and/or local initiatives, which included the participation of occupational therapists. This article also discusses the contributions of occupational therapists to Brazilian CBR programs, highlighting their abilities to identify and characterize the needs of people with disabilities, the needs of their families and the community, from a comprehensive perspective, and to encourage their participation in meaningful activities and in finding local solutions for existing problems. This article supports the idea that the aim of occupational therapy is to build processes of emancipation and social integration for people with disabilities, their families and community; processes which consider the need for achieving and exercising human rights.

AAC Intervention Research With Children and Youth With Moderate and Severe Disabilities in Brazil

AAC Intervention Research With Children and Youth With Moderate and Severe Disabilities in Brazil

Special education reform in Brazil: an historical analysis of educational policies

ABSTRACT This paper describes an histprical view of the legal and political aspects related to special education. It analyses the current and future perspectives that public and private educational institutions utilize to provide school services to individuals with disabilities in Brazil. Although Brazil has developed laws and provisions to guarantee the integration of students with disabilities into regular schools, this is not happening in most cases. In fact, Brazil does not yet have schools that consider the diversification of students’ capabilities as beneficial to the intellectual development of deficient and non‐deficient students. Poor teacher training and institutional conservatism constitute the obstacles to the implementation of innovation in this area. Most of the innovations seen today are the fruit of individual initiatives, such as the Project for Training Teachers to Integrate the Disabled into Schools (PROEDEM) and the Project for Using Computers in Special Education, that we describe. We believe that these new proposals will have a great impact on the education of students with deficiencies. This will raise the consciousness of educators and will help to transform the current conceptions and actions related to the education of people with disabilities, making possible the implementation of special education reforms.