Challenges and impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on autistic learning: a case study

• Autor(a) principal: Borges, Andreia Arantes
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Outros Autores: Aniceto, Geisiane Cristina
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Actio (Curitiba)
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.utfpr.edu.br/actio/article/view/15400
• topic: Educação, Tópicos específicos de educação, Educação especial; Autismo; Pandemia; COVID-19; Ensino remoto; Aprendizagem; Autism; Pandemic; COVID-19; Online learning; Learning

The educational systems were not prepared to confront the exceptionalities arising from the COVID-19 pandemic and sought alternatives to minimize the impacts on students' learning by pundering their hopes in remote learning. Although the change in the teaching model has fully impacted several audiences, students affected by Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) faced greater challenges during the process of adapting to the new reality of teaching. In this sense, the identification of the challenges and impacts generated by the COVID-19 pandemic in the school development of students with ASD regularly enrolled in a public primary education school in the municipality of São José do Alegre/Minas Gerais was carried out by applying a questionnaire to a regent teacher and a support teacher, in addition to five parents responsible for these children and adolescents. The teachers considered that the pandemic moderately impacted the learning of their autistic students, observing little progress in their ability to learn. However, for most parents, the pandemic interfered negatively, as they observed a great setback in their children's learning. In the perception of the regent teacher, the main challenge to teaching was related to the teaching-learning process that needed to be widely re-meant to meet the restrictive conditions of the moment. For the support teacher, the challenge was to establish effective contact with the students to stimulate the activities. Parents were unanimous in considering establishing a new study routine for their children as the main challenge. Faced with the new challenges, the teachers bet on maintaining the bond with students and on the mediation of learning as ways to minimize impacts. The intensification of dialogue, constant mediation and greater patience are the main attitudes experienced by parents to minimize the possible damage to the school development of their autistic children during the pandemic of the new coronavirus.