“He is normal”: phenomenological considerations of child/adolescent’s perception of the disabled sibling

Abstract

Objective: To understand the child/adolescent’s perception of the disabled sibling. Method: Qualitative research, with a phenomenological approach, conducted between 2018 and 2019, in a municipality in the south of Brazil, with 20 children/adolescents who are siblings of people with disabilities, through a phenomenological interview. Respecting ethical precepts, hermeneutics was used for interpretation. Results: The child/adolescent perceives his/her disabled sibling as a normal person, given his/her behavior, way of being and intellectual capacity. Still, it understands him as a special being, who has limitations regarding learning, but does not see him as different, thus, unlinks the idea of disability associated with the disease/abnormality. Final considerations: The perception of the disabled sibling occurs within the perception of normality. The child identifies his sibling’s lower learning capacitor a way that is unique to him, a fact that does not condition him to be seen as abnormal, defining his being-in-the-world as a special way of existing.