Desempenho motor de alunos com paralisia cerebral frente à adaptação de recursos pedagógicos

Most children with motor disturbances present difficulties on interacting with the environment, due to motor deficits, which include problems of handling. The condition for a child to spontaneously manipulate a toy sometimes is concerned to a need of making adaptations on how this person physically handles it. The main goal of this study was to analyze the modified physical properties in a pedagogical resource that could facilitate handling among children with cerebral palsy. To accomplish that, two studies have been developed. In the first one, a questionnaire have been applied to all pre-schooling teachers who used to teach in pre I, II and/or III classes in Municipal Pre-schooling institutions located in an inland city of the state of Sao Paulo. This research was carried out to identify the most employed pedagogical resources by teachers, in order to choose that one in which physical properties have been modified. In our second study, we made adaptations on physical properties, referred to size, weight and texture. The participants involved in study 2 were three 5 and 6 year-old-children with cerebral palsy, who have been enrolled in the regular preschooling system. The analysis was developed according to the upper limb movement quality for the following variables: straightness ratio, displacement (s), average speed (V) and time (t) applied into the displacement. The results of the first study showed that pre-schooling teachers had been using more frequently, in the classrooms, blocks games and, at school, drilling. In regard to the second study, the results clarified that the modifications on physical properties in respect to the pedagogical resource and the combination between them became relevant, once each need for a specific motor condition could be specified and fulfilled to those children with cerebral palsy because they present a significant range of clinical manifestations – so it is not possible to treat data generically. Adaptations of pedagogical resources may be one of the relevant strategies for those children with cerebral palsy to develop their motor skills more properly. Thus, this study contributed to understand motor responses of children with cerebral palsy when these are submitted to connecting drills with pedagogical resources, whose physical properties were altered. Therefore, the teacher will receive more assistance to implement adaptations on pedagogical resources for children with cerebral palsy. Key-words: Special Education; Cerebral palsy; Pedagogical resource; Assistive Technology.