Resumo

MALASPINA, Érica Arruda  e  LAMONICA, Dionísia Aparecida Cusin. Interactive and communicative abilities of autistic children: a maternal perspective. Rev. bras. educ. espec. [online]. 2004, vol.10, n.02, pp.221-234. ISSN 1413-6538.

In cases of autism, the evaluation process of interactive and communicative abilities can suffer interferences from behavioral aspects. These aspects make it difficult for the children to respond adequately to the stimuli in testing situations, since they have problems when routines are broken, or when there are new interpersonal interactions or changes in the physical environment, among others. In this aspect, the family, and most especially the mother, with her daily contact with the autistic child can contribute by informing about his interactive and communicative abilities with precision, aiding the professionals in discovering the communicative peculiarities of their children. The objective of this study was to investigate the perceptions that mothers of autistic children had concerning their children’s interactive and communicative abilities. This study consisted of 34 mothers of autistic children who answered a questionnaire about the first symptoms, the diagnosis, and the interactive and communicative abilities. After a descriptive analysis of the data, the results showed that the mothers noticed their children’s interactive and communicative difficulties, describing as main changes in interactive performance, their strange way of playing, the use of another as an instrument, repetitive and self-stimulatory movements, among others. With regard to communication, they all reported difficulties and among the problems found they described the mutism, the use of jargon, echolalia, words without meaning and the difficulty to follow orders. Thus, the mothers contributed to the knowledge concerning their children’s interactive and communicative performance, providing relevant information for understanding their children’s interactive and communicative abilities.

Palavras-chave : Autism; Family; Assessment.

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