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Communication as a barrier for including visual handicapped pupils in mechanics classes

This paper is a part of a broader study aiming to understand the main barriers for including visual handicapped pupils in physics' teaching contexts. It analyzes communication difficulties between future physics teachers and visual handicapped pupils during Mechanics classes. It emphasizes the empirical and semantic-sensorial structures of the languages used, indicating factors which produce the accessibility difficulties for the spread of information. It recommends alternatives in order to make possible the effective participation of visual handicapped pupils in the communicative process. It concludes that communication represents the main barrier to the effective visual handicapped pupils' participation in optics classes and emphasizes the importance of creating communicatively appropriate channels as a basic condition for including these students.

Visual handicap; Physics teaching; Mechanics; Communication; Inclusion


Programa de Pós-Graduação em Educação para a Ciência, Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), Faculdade de Ciências, campus de Bauru. Av. Engenheiro Luiz Edmundo Carrijo Coube, 14-01, Campus Universitário - Vargem Limpa CEP 17033-360 Bauru - SP/ Brasil , Tel./Fax: (55 14) 3103 6177 - Bauru - SP - Brazil
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