Neurodiversity in the academic environment: reflections of the educational failures of a higher education institution in the interior of Paraná

Abstract

Neurodiversity is a recent concept that characterizes a class of individuals with neural divergences, therefore this study aimed to understand what are the social representations in the academic environment about the neurodiverse people. The data were collected qualitatively by making a semi-structured questionnaire available online through the Google Forms platform. The questionnaire had discursive questions about the teaching profile and the perception of the theme of Neurodiversity, based on the Technique of Free Word Association. The representative and random sample consisted of 25 academic professors from a higher education institution in the city of Maringá – Paraná, Brasil. The analysis of the collected data was made based on the Bardin Content Analysis. The results showed that the teachers demonstrated a lack of scientific knowledge about Neurodiversity and presented discriminatory perceptions that differ from the reality and complexity of the neuroatypical student in the university environment, interfering negatively in their educational process, promoting their exclusion. Therefore, the lack of knowledge on the subject and the prejudice against the neurodiverse was proven, even as, the need to carry out more scientific research about the subject, in order to add informational subsidies to spread this knowledge that still presents sparingly.