Occupational therapy and education: the propositions of occupational therapists in and for school in Brazil

• Main Authors: Beatriz Prado Pereira, Patrícia Leme de Oliveira Borba, Roseli Esquerdo Lopes
• Format: Article
• Language: Portuguese
• Published: Universidade Federal de São Carlos 2021-01-01
• Series: Cadernos Brasileiros de Terapia Ocupacional
• Subjects: occupational therapy; school; education; mainstreaming; education; education; special
• Online Access: http://www.cadernosdeterapiaocupacional.ufscar.br/index.php/cadernos/article/view/2744

Occupational therapists have contributed and aim to continue creating solutions to problems within the scope of the Education sector. Thus, the objective of this research was to know and analyze the propositions of occupational therapists in Brazil who have been doing for and in School. To this end, a mapping review was carried out in the SciELO library and in the following Brazilian journals: Cadernos Brasileiros de Terapia Ocupacional and Revista de Terapia Ocupacional da Universidade de São Paulo, in an open period until the end of 2018. With this survey and its systematization, 36 texts were collected that articulated “occupational therapy and school/education”. At the same time, during 2017, six interviews were conducted with Brazilian researchers who worked on the interface of occupational therapy and education. The collected data set and its analysis led to the elaboration of four thematic axes that configured and delimited the arguments used to support and problematize therapeuticoccupational propositions in dialogue with the Education sector, specifically in schools. It was evident a prevalence of practices aimed at children with disabilities under an individualized perspective approach and associated with the production of/in health has been evidenced. Simultaneously, there has been an increase in the number of proposition solutions aimed at early childhood education and socially vulnerable youth; notably, those included found in popular and poverty impoverished contexts, outlined in the individual/collective transition. It should be emphasized that the energy to designate education as a particular field of intervention for occupational therapists, with its methodological approach, technical knowledge, and specific populations, is still under construction in development and in dispute within occupational therapy itself.