Characterization of enrollments of students with autism spectrum disorders by Brazilian regions

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to characterize the enrollments contained in the microdata of the School Census of students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in the common classroom in the five Brazilian regions, considering the possible impacts of Law No. 12.764 / 2012. In order to do it, a comparative documental research was carried out, with a cutoff period between the years of 2009 and 2016. For data collection, treatment and analysis, the software IBM SPSS Statistics was used. The variables studied were: total enrollment in the common classroom; gender; educational stage and total enrollment in Specialized Educational Service (SES). The results showed an increase in enrollments of students with ASD in regular education, which is more evident after 2012; a change in the ratio of female and male students along the period studied, tending towards a proportion of one female student for each 4.5 male students with ASD; high rates of school evasion, which is associated with a low rate of enrollment in SEA. It was concluded that even though the access to regular classroom increased considerably in all Brazilian regions, it is still necessary to rethink the support strategies for this target population. With regards to the Law No. 12.74/2012, its impact could be noticed only in the first two studied variables.