Literacy for children with down syndrome in the light of neuroscience

Abstract

Down's Syndrome is an intellectual disability that affects thousands of people, so there is the challenge of teaching them literacy using a methodology that meets their limitations in a promising way. Considering the field of neuroscience, several studies have been developed aimed at understanding how the brain works and how these studies can be translated into the field of education. In this sense, the aim of this work was to use the recognition and formation of letters as a principle for learning to read and write in the initial literacy process of a student with Down's Syndrome, using the methodology developed by Naschold (2015; 2016). The student's writing and reading phases were systematically analyzed, based on the theory of neuronal recycling and the Diagnostic Instrument for the Initial Stages of Literacy (IDEIA). The results showed that the student had made considerable progress in writing, managing to write his first name and understanding the formation of each letter based on straight and curved shapes. In this way, we conclude that the application of the methodology was very efficient and can be replicated with other children. In addition, it is important and necessary for further discussions to be held considering the updates of neuroscience for the field of education, as well as for this methodology to be applied in the long term, with adaptations also applied in complementary activities.