Cartografia Tátil: produção e avaliação de recursos táteis para alunos com deficiência visual

Abstract

This research was developed during the Geography Course of a future teacher, when she was diagnosed with an eye disease that resulted in low vision in her left eye and loss of vision in her right eye. Using his personal and cartographic skills, he sought to answer the guiding research question: How to help students with low vision perceive spatial transformations through Tactile Maps in Geography teaching? The objective of this study was to analyze the contributions of tactile cartography in geography teaching, aiming to improve the perception of people with visual impairments. Therefore, this work resulted from qualitative research to understand the school reality of teaching work with students with visual impairments. In the first stage, data were collected through interviews and questionnaires, which made it possible to analyze the subjectivities and particularities involving students and teachers. In the second stage, Tactile Maps were drawn up, teaching resources were applied and evaluated according to pedagogical planning and teaching and institutional guidelines, and subsequent writing of the educational experiment. The production of this material included the collaboration of the Center for Pedagogical Support for the Visually Impaired of Maranhão ―Ana Maria Patello Saldanha‖ – CAP/MA, specialized in assisting the Visually Impaired, to transcribe the subtitles into Braille. The maps created were applied at the Escola de Cegos do Maranhão, based on a collaboration between the teaching laboratory of the Geography Course at the State University of Maranhão (UEMA). After preparation in the laboratory, the maps were taken for evaluation by students, with total visual impairment and enrolled in the 9th year, in the second semester of 2022. The main results of the research bring the contributions of the didactic use of six handcrafted tactile maps in high highlighted with low-cost materials, which served as a teaching methodology for people with visual impairments, developed during the research