Made by:
Elisabete Dias de Sá
The compilation of this report is based upon a collective effort started from the contributions of the Workshop on Inclusive Education in Brazil, and of the “Lista Inclusiva”, an online forum created with the purpose of broadening the participation and intensifying the debate on the guiding topics of the workshop, which took place in Rio de Janeiro on March, 24-26, 2003.
The online discussion took place on May, 12-16, involving a heterogeneous group with the active participation of 39 members, generating a total of 152 messages. We can identify participants from a number of Brazilian states, from Argentina, from Spain, and from Portugal. The forum diversity was characterized by the presence of professionals and experts on education, and other fields of knowledge, besides college and university students, parents of visually challenged and Down Syndrome children and teenagers, and people with motor or sensorial disabilities.
Among participants with disabilities, we can identify users of wheelchairs, keyboard activators, screen readers, prosthesis, etc.
The information, experience reports, depositions, and recommendations were organized into topics with the intent of depicting the landscape of assistive technologies and the pedagogical material in the educational context.
The success of students with disabilities can be compromised by the lack of resources and solutions that help them overcome the functional difficulties inside and outside the classroom environment. That is what gets observed in schools, starting from the specific situations and needs of those students, for whom learning and the school-routine activities, performed along with their own class, represent a challenge to them, their families, their colleagues, and their teachers. The resources and the alternatives available are thought of as something expensive and generally unavailable to everybody. Thus, it becomes necessary to disseminate that knowledge and to foster the development of assistive technologies. This is the background in which we would like to present a few examples of low-cost technological solutions.
The teacher, who strives to solve functional problems in the school’s daily routine, even if she’s unaware of it, is developing assistive technology, e.g. when she thickens the pencil to facilitate the handling and the writing, or when she firms the piece of paper into place with scotch-tape, so it does not slide with the student’s involuntary movements.
Or even, when designing a chair’s seat and back, which assures posture stability and favors the functional use of the hands. By doing this, the teacher creates solutions and strategies, starting from the identification of a particular universe. Thus, assistive technology should be understood as a solution to functional problems, from a viewpoint of human potential development, valuation of dreams, skills, positive expectations, and quality of life.
The different kinds of assistive technologies include alternative communication, computer accessibility, daily life activities, orientation and mobility, posture correctness, vehicle adaptation, and orthesis and prosthesis resources, among others. A more complete description of those modalities can be found in http://www.clik.com.br/ta_01.html.
The participation of professionals and handicapped people from other countries has contributed to the exploration of those aspects having to do with the role of the state in terms of developing, prescribing, and distributing technical assistance, a topic that raised many questions in different contexts.
The development of software and computer equipment, especially in the field of screen readers, in Brazil, was considered a pioneering effort when compared to Portugal or to other Latin American countries. The Brazilian software applications – DOSVOX and Virtual Vision – designed with blind users in mind, are commercialized or freely distributed in the framework of agreements and partnerships with public and private institutions.
Even though computer usage is more advanced and widespread in the field of Visual Incapacity, we can glimpse other application possibilities in the case of physical, sensorial, mental, and/or motor incapacities, language dysfunctions, etc.
In that regard, we identified projects and initiatives presenting low-cost and easily built solutions, aimed at filling the specific needs of each students and making the students’ interaction with the computer possible. Such is the case, for example, of hardware adaptations or special keyboard and mouse simulation accessibility software, which can be freely downloaded from the Internet (http://www.lagares.org/).
The relative cost of developing and acquiring tools, equipment, devices, and helping material, is always a problem when dealing with the Brazilian situation, because there is no mandatory delivery of technical assistance. What can be seen is the distribution of orthesis and prosthesis, on a small scale, and in an anarchical and insufficient way, when one considers the demands of an economically fragile population.
In which cases should the state donate, finance or facilitate an equipment acquisition? And in those cases, who should be able to prescribe? Who, and in which terms, should finance them?
One of the points discussed was the quality and nature of the didactical material to be used by school-age children. The digital format doesn’t prove to be ideal because it does not provide sufficiently small and autonomous devices for a child to play with on the floor or carry from one place to another. That problem can be better understood from the Spanish initiative which opted to create a Centro Estatal de Autonomía Personal y Ayudas Técnicas (CEAPAT – Personal Autonomy and Technical Assistance State Center) in which there is a catalog of technical assistance including the formational and recreational materials designed for handicapped people (CEAPAT: http://www.ceapat.org/catalogo/).
One can find on the Internet a few examples of pedagogical material creation with low-cost simple resources, and freely available software for computer accessibility and other ends. Such is the case, for instance, of the Acesso CD kit, published in Portugal by the Universidade de Trás-os-Montes – UTAD/CERTIC –, which presents a collection of 42 programs in the fields of accessibility, educational support, and enhanced communication, a version of which is available at http://www.acessibilidade.net/at/kit/.
Other examples of simple low-cost adaptations, and the application of assistive technologies to the education of children with cognitive deficits, and motor and sensorial disorders, can be found in the “Informática na Educação Especial” (“Computers and Special Education”) Program, maintained by a specialized institution of Salvador/Bahia: http://infoesp.vila.bol.com.br/.
In the same note, a special emphasis should be given to keyboard and mouse simulation software, and alternative communication boards’ design software. Some of them can be downloaded for free from the Internet, as can be exemplified by the “Teclado Amigo” (“Friendly Keyboard”), which can be found at http://www.saci.org.br/?modulo=akemi¶metro=3847, and the communication boards’ design software “Plaphoons” at http://www.lagares.org/.
The creation of that type of software and accessibility devices comes out of the specific needs of different students who are unable to use either the mouse, or the keyboard, or the microphone, unless they are modified or adapted. A left-button click can be a hard or even impossible task for students with anatomical disorders in their upper limbs or with motor limitations that keep them from performing the task.
We will now present a short description of a simple mouse adaptation:
“It is a common VHS tape box, commonly used to store the video tapes, and in which center a mouse is inserted and taped into place with Velcro. On the inside cover of that box, a common eraser is glued at the exact same point where the mouse’s left button is located. That cover of the box should be nearly closed, and small stripes of Velcro can be used to keep it in that position. Placing that device in front of the student, when he or she presses any point on the cover of the box, the protruding eraser will press the left button of the mouse, causing it to click…” (http://infoesp.vila.bol.com.br/).
Some participants have questioned the usage of specific methodologies, and the need for specially designed software for the education of children with Down Syndrome, autism, and other cognitive deficit disorders. In those cases, what should be evaluated are features and needs, such as the ability to focus, abstraction motivation, previous knowledge, among others. In everything else, the procedures, the didactical resources, and the learning tools should be the same ones used with other students. According to that viewpoint, software for Down syndrome kids will equally be useful for other children who are in the same stage of their cognitive development process, and vice-versa. A more enlightening approach to that viewpoint can be seen at http://www.saci.org.br/index.php?modulo=materia¶metro=3488.
The participation of blind and nearly blind professionals and students was responsible for the identification of several key aspects in this area. The group has discussed the importance of the Braille System, the peculiarities of touch, the interpretation of relief graphics and drawings, the creation of tactile maps, the description and exploration of images, the cursive handwriting, and the ink signature. Educational strategies and didactical resources specially suited for the alphabetization of blind and nearly blind children were also discussed.
The adoption of the Braille System in the learning context of nearly blind students became a focus of discussion in the follow-up of the case study of a blind student who participates orally in his classes because he refuses to learn Braille. He relies on the support of an itinerating teacher to perform the written evaluation.
At this point, a mother shared with the group her rejection of Braille and the white cane. She has a nearly blind child, and she reported several episodes in her struggle to ensure his permanence in a regular private school. The topic brightened the discussion, and originated comments and depositions by blind people and professionals working in the field. We are pasting a few comments illustrating the convergence of opinions and conclusions:
“The child that can see reads Braille with his or her eyes, and not with his or her hands. If the Braille reading is performed with the eyes, the child might as well be reading any other material that is easier to discriminate and with greater contrast” (…) “a child that sees a little does not accept Braille, and can not read by touch, because it can see” (…) “It is not right to force the students, just as it is not right to keep them from learning and using Braille. In this learning, they should be motivated for tactile reading, since Braille was designed for the fingers and not for the eyes. This learning should not in any case exclude the stimulation of the residual vision, mostly through amplified writing and other specific material to the same end, and through the use of the eyes in everything else… whenever it is possible”.
The discussion ended on the optical and non-optical resources, which are considered very useful for the performance of school tasks. The physical environment conditions, the placement and adaptation of furniture, the light regulation devices were also stressed as assistive technology modalities catering to the specific needs of those students.
“(…) While I studied in a school for visually impaired students, my pre-school class had peculiarities which merited a quite differentiated work with each student. (…) The thing that draws my attention is the skill with which my teacher led the class, administrating those differences and respecting the peculiarity of each student. (…) My teacher devised exercises that stimulated the residual vision of my colleagues and stimulated my touch and motor coordination by drawing with wax crayons on smooth paper, which can be perceived by touch. Furthermore, I performed perception activities using Braille lines in a book that taught, through those lines, the notions of beginning, middle, and end, as well as lines with gaps in the middle for me to find, etc.”
“(…) I came upon college entrance with a really poor knowledge about the design and interpretation of graphics, tables, schematics, and structures in the case of organic chemistry. My unpreparedness was not bigger simply because a few lights shone in my path, such as the one of my second year of high school chemistry teacher, and the physics teachers in my pre-entrance course, who had the patience, and dedicated their time teaching me how to interpret the movement and electricity representation graphics, as well as the optics-related parts. The teacher made drawings in a piece of paper on top of a soft piece of rubber, which allowed me to learn about the behavior of mirrors. All with easily understandable graphics, and which were plainly perceivable by touch.
(Deposition by a Belo Horizonte/MG journalist).”
“In the beginning of my learning experience, while still at home, how much I appreciated those little paquevira seeds, which allowed me to build the alphabet in amplified dots, making it easier to learn the Braille alphabet.
The scarcity of resources at the Blind People Institute for the last 40 years has made me use even small coconuts, no bigger than an egg, to show the Braille cell to beginner students. Thus, they learned fast the Braille dots.
Years later, we set up a Braille ruler with 10 cells, each containing 6 holes corresponding to the Braille dots. Tin pins represented the dots. This is how we built the Mobile Braille, which has made learning easier.”
(Deposition by a specialized professor from Recife/PE).
Important elements in the education of a deaf student are:
(Contribution of a deaf student attending a chemistry college degree in Florianopolis/SC).
Accessibility to online learning platforms, i.e. the tools used for so-called “e-learning”, is of prime importance for inclusive education. Online education platforms include electronic mail systems, discussion forums, web page creation, content distribution, multimedia, and all the necessary tools for creating collaborative environments. Investments in this kind of projects, however, do not take into account equalitarian access with an eye on the specific needs of handicapped persons. In view of that, universities – especially if they are publicly funded – should implement or develop platforms allowing an inclusive education.
Investment in educator training programs focused on acquiring and using these tools is equally opportune and should be recommended. Meanwhile, it is not enough to create an accessible platform; it is also necessary that content creation professionals know how to remove accessibility barriers from a diversity of users. Hence, the use of information technologies should consider the needs of all possible users, including handicapped people, older people, and users with slower connection or older equipment. Besides, those platforms should be used in an appropriate fashion, taking most advantage of their possibilities, so as not to simply transpose a traditional class.
How to assure that users and professionals of these technologies have proper training/qualification? It is necessary to create mechanisms for diffusing, supporting, and valuing studies, researches, and productions in the field. Many efficient prototypes, created and developed with teacher and student resources, could become products, had they some support and investment. For example, an orally controlled motor wheel chair was designed by a team of students of the São José, SC Technical School. These kinds of projects could be recognized as fields or subfields of knowledge, starting from Education Ministry criteria.
With that in mind, one of the proposals presented was the institution of incentives and prizes sponsored by public and private organizations, with the scope of attracting students from technical schools and technological degrees. With that end purpose, the possibility was considered of establishing partnerships between educational agents and handicapped people representatives, so the users could determine the viability and quality of the products.
Furthermore, the creation of regional groups or teams, under the Educational Secretaries, was recommended for the purpose of sponsoring research and data updating on assistive technologies, working with regional resources.
These teams would be responsible for assessorship and support, in this area, in the school community.
Another matter of concern has to do with the production and diffusion mechanisms of assistive technologies. In that regard, one of the proposals of the Salamanca Declaration was thought to be relevant:
“Technical support can be offered in a more economical and effective way if it is provided from a central association in each locality, where know-how can be found that makes it possible the conjugation of individual needs and maintenance is assured.” (Salamanca – 1994).
It was also given consideration to the proposals contained in the document published by the Electronic Government Executive Committee (http://www.governoeletronico.gov.br/) during the Digital Inclusion Workshop that took place in Brasilia in May, 2001.
One of the proposals of the said document is the creation, under the Ministry of Science and Technology, of a National Institute of Assistive Technology or a Technical Assistance National Center – CNAT – for Digital Inclusion.
The CNAT will be responsible for promoting and sponsoring research and development efforts of programs, equipment and devices deemed necessary for the digital inclusion of people with special needs.
From the information, depositions, and data compiled into this report, we make explicit the multiple dimensions of assistive technologies, seen as all and every resource or alternative for the resolution of functional problems. That conception rests upon the recognition and valuation of the human potential, as opposed to the logic of an intervention model focused upon the handicaps, restrictions and incapacities.
We perceive the dynamism, adaptability, and creative capacity of the human being inventing and reinventing ways and means to act, interact, perform tasks, and work in different challenging contexts.
We try to remove accessibility barriers, detect problems, and usher solutions. We exercise cooperation, idea-sharing, and tolerance. The experience reports, the limit-surpassing and the possibility-increasing examples reveal a trajectory made of obstacles, conquests, and challenges, which aims to transform the school and to build a society open for everyone.