Benefícios da introdução de animais na vida escolar de crianças com deficiência

Abstract

This study presents a rather new alternative to the work of pedagogue in handicapped education to the point of being considered a pedagogical strategy which facilitates the learning of handicapped children. This study has the objective of verifying existence of pedagogical benefits in the lives of handicapped children when an animal is involved in their treatment and through literature research and interviews, identify and expose qualitatively and descriptively what these benefits are. Other people ́s positive experiences on this theme will also be presented, through testimonies and reports. The Animal-Assisted Therapy (AAT), present features and proven results that will be appreciated by children, their families and educators. Researches show that when handicapped children start AAT, they have more concentration, more attention, are they become more sociable and less aggressive. During the interviews, it was discovered that the presence of a pedagogue in multidisciplinary therapy team is essential because the child would be involved in a learning process all the time. It would be necessary there were an interaction between the child school and AAT, in which all the possibilities and limits of the handicapped child might be explored, resulting into true and meaningful learning.