SPECIAL EDUCATION, PSYCHOLOGY AND PUBLIC POLICIES: THE DIAGNOSIS AND THE PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICES

Abstract

The article aims to analyze public policies, diagnostic and pedagogical practices in special education, highlighting conceptions and articulations between them, mainly affecting the work of psychologists and teachers. Aspects of the legislation are considered with regard to special education and the diagnostic process, and the work done at school, based on these elements. Based on historical-cultural psychology, the reflections are permeated by the case of Roberto, a 4th year student, diagnosed with intellectual disability in psychological report, it is important to highlight that the research participant was not related to the focus of this article. The predominance of the clinical perspective in policies and practices is pointed out, based on an individual and biological conception of disability, for which failure is the responsibility of the individual; and also that, from this perspective, the pedagogical mediations are of low quality, infantilizing, so that they result more in exclusion and inferiority than in the subject’s learning and development.