Autoscopia na formação docente: reflexão da prática pedagógica com crianças com autismo na educação infantil

Abstract

In recent years, a significant increase has been observed in the proportion of enrollments of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), who are entering basic education at increasingly earlier ages. In this context, merely ensuring the right to enrollment is not sufficient to guarantee inclusive education. One of the main challenges to the effective inclusion of students with ASD is the precariousness of continuing professional development for teachers who work with this population. Studies highlight reflection on one’s own teaching practice as a fundamental factor in teachers’ professional development processes. This reflective stance toward teaching practice leads to the use of autoscopy, which consists of a formative procedure based on the recording and subsequent analysis of one’s own professional practice, allowing individuals to observe themselves in action and critically reflect on their behaviors, decisions, and strategies, thereby fostering processes of awareness and re-signification of practice. The main objective of this research is to investigate how the autoscopic process, when used as a tool in teacher education, supports the pedagogical practice of teachers of children with ASD. The study involved an early childhood education teacher and a child with ASD enrolled in a class at a Municipal Early Childhood Education Center in the city of Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. The study was grounded in a qualitative, participatory approach. Autoscopy was organized around four actions of the reflective process: describing, informing, confronting, and reconstructing. The teacher’s verbal accounts obtained through autoscopy constituted the material submitted to Content Analysis. The category considered was formative needs, with the following subcategories: communication, planning, and assessment. The results indicate that autoscopy, when used as a tool in teacher education, provides a space for critical and formative reflection, enabling teachers to recognize limitations and identify alternatives for the implementation of inclusive practices, while also highlighting the importance of continuing professional development within the workplace itself.