32183
Artea – Artistic Practices with Children in the Autism Spectrum
Brazil doesn’t have robust epidemiological data on prevalence of ASD. Our education has worked from the perspective of inclusive education since 1994, but the law that regulates this model was only enacted in 2016. In 2007, official data from the city's municipal education office in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, pointed only 38 children with autism in early childhood education (0 to 60 months). In 2008, this number rises to 68; and in 2016, 140 students. However, in 2018, we identified (through document analysis) 12 children diagnosed with ASD in only one of the 131 schools in the network.
Children at this age spend between 20-38h weekly at school. Knowing the importance of children’s time quality, the importance of early intervention, and knowing the lack of knowledge of those teachers on ASD, we built a pilot project called ArTEA (art-ASD, in portuguese), using art-education as main tool.
Objectives:
To present ArTEA as a tool to expand the range of possibilities for offering ASD care in the context of early childhood education in Brazilian context;
Identify if artistic practices can be useful for early intervention and sensitization of Early Childhood teachers;
Reflect on the potential of using methodologies to work with art education in the field of inclusion, as well as the importance of interdisciplinary work in addition to health and education courses, including Visual Arts, Dance, Music and Theater.
Methods:
Pilot Project with a group of Municipal Unit of Early Childhood Education-UMEI: 20 children aged 4/5 years, 2 with ASD, 2 teachers and 2 auxiliaries of inclusion (paraprofessionals, with no professional licensure and almosto no training in ASD);
20 4-hour meetings of artistic workshops, focusing on group corporal movement experimentation, aiming at inclusive activities, that instill the corporality of all in the activity. We used some principles of the Early Star Denver Model (ESDM) as a coadjuvant, namely: following child leadership, reciprocity (being play partners), and positive affect. We also use sensory-body and rhythmic proposals, using different materials (percussive musical instruments, tissues, hula hoops, balloons, etc.);
10 training meetings with teachers, coordination and paraprofessionals;
Application of post interview and questionnaire (with Likert scale) pre and post project for teachers.
Results:
We note inclusive power of artistic work when performed in conjunction with typical children, especially in aspects of relational improvement among pairs and play repertoire expansion of childrens in the spectrum. We observe the importance of planning activities based on elements children in the spectrum bring - preferences, focus of attention, etc.
Teachers feel more secure and interested after participating in the workshops, although the school hasn’t been able yet to schedule the theoretical training sessions.
Conclusions:
The project is situated in a frontier territory between art, education and clinic. Artistic practices, even though they are neither therapeutic nor educational in their origin, place us face multiple possibilities of encounter. It is important that new practices and research be done, filling the gap of methodological and experiential knowledge about the arts with children with ASD and early childhood education.