Investigando a família e a escola no contexto educacional especializado de crianças de zero a três anos

The acting and the sharing of family and school responsibilities with children with disabilities or children considered at risk in early childhood have shown to be a challenging task. Studies have focused on this theme contemplating the stages of early child education or literacy, or exposing issues related to intellectual disability in literacy or in early child education; but there are few studies involving the children in early childhood, that is, from zero to three years old. The birth of a child with disability causes anguish and insecurity. The indication and the guiding of the child with disability for specialized educational service can give opportunity to new experiences for the family and also for the school. Based on the theoretical framework of human development and cultural psychology, this study aims to broaden the perspectives for a systemic view of the contexts and their interrelations in the bidirectional process between school and family. Therefore, the study analyses the family-school relationship in specialized educational service setting (AEE – atendimento educacional especializado) of children with disabilities in the 0-3 age group. The research participants were six parents, six teachers and six students from two AEE public educational institutions located in a Midwest region town. It is an ethnographic qualitative research, which tends to look more adequately to the concerns of the study. The methodological resources were semi-structured interviews, observations in service settings with video recording, and documentary analysis of the political pedagogical project of the schools and pedagogical orientation of the specialized context. The analysis procedures were constructed through information interpretation during the field research, enabling the construction of four stages of analysis: a) description of the service dynamics, b) reporting of family stories using literary chronicles, c) microanalysis of three video recordings episodes, and d) parents’ and teachers’ conceptions on the themes: human development and disability. The result analysis demonstrated the harmonious interaction between parents and teachers in the matters involving students, the importance of the service for the families and for the school, as well as respect to individual characteristics of each participant by his/her peers. We have also observed the need for deepening in teachers continuing education, family’s strengthening and empowerment, their duties and appreciation, as well as supporting pedagogical practices and joint actions for the development of children and their families. The study provided questions for future researches as a reflection of daily teaching practice by teachers working in these settings.