Adaptations of mathematical games in Higher Education for visual disability students

Abstract

With the increase of people with disabilities admissions in Higher Educational Institutions, structural and pedagogical changes need to happen to provide the appropriate support for the specific needs of these students. This article refers to the material adaptation process of a discipline focused on mathematics of the Pedagogy program distance learning, at a public university in Rio de Janeiro, in order to contemplate a visual impairment student. Therefore, the objectives are: to report the process of adapting the practical and theoretical materials from the mathematics discipline for a blind student; and to validate the adaptation of mathematical games of the discipline based on the experience of a blind student. As a methodology, two semi-structured interviews were applied to the student and the evaluative case study method was used. So, the analysis was made based on a practical experience of a blind student in the use of mathematical games, confectioned by a research group for a discipline of the Pedagogy program. The first interview was realized previously to the games confection, to understand the student’s individual needs; and the second one was realized posteriorly to the confection, which aimed to obtain the student feedback about the elaborated material. In order that the adaptations could be made, the research group received the material in advance to understand the content and to discuss how the game could be made. From the reception, the construction of the board games went through some steps: to comprehend the mathematics, to have knowledge of braille system, to understand the rules of the games and which materials could be used. The initial interview helped the group to understand the student’s needs and how to better serve him, thus creating a personalized material according to his specificities. As for the discipline’s theoretical material adaptation, it was used some technological tools such as computer and text conversion applications and the elaboration of audio descriptions of the images. It is concluded that the materials adaptation with the blind student was essential for his understanding of the content approached, also providing his inclusion in the class for being able to keep up all the time the lesson proposal.