Adolescentes com deficiência mental: um exercício para a busca da cidadania

Abstract

Over centuries, people with disability were submitted to a continuous social exclusion process. They were considered as people of second category, they were denied the right of express their opinion, even to the simplest things. In few occasions in which it was possible, the participation was always conducted by technicians and responsibles, favoring, therefore, dependence instead of autonomy. The object proposed in this search is to identify and analyze the teenager's autonomy with mental disability (MD) that is attended at APAE (Association of Parents and Friends of the Disabled) in the city of Guaxupé-MG. With this object, one searches emplacement for the construction of a process that takes to the establishment of a movement of consistent social inclusion, from the teenagers' formation on with mental disability to exercise the function of self-lawyers. It's about a study of descriptive nature, based on data of interview with the mentally disabled teenagers of both sexes, aging from 10 to 19. In examining the data from the interviews, we seek to explore what the subjects said about their personal relationships and activities in three areas: 1) the house, 2) the particular institution and 3) other social spheres. The manifestations of respondents indicate that their personal relationships and activities are, in general, markedly monitored conducted on the basis of a complex interweaving of care, protection, underestimation and childish, that underlies the actions of others towards them. For these young people with disabilities, the provision that seems to pervade the family action (and probably the particular institution) is that children should not be left unattended, can not do many things alone. Thus, the subjects have different activities and interactions in other spheres, but opportunities are limited and, with rare exceptions, subject to the authorization and presence of family and special institution, which, although not exclusively take the conduct of their lives.