Discourses of deaf children’s parents: early childhood education and the presence of Libras

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present a part of a Master’s research conducted under the Postgraduate Program in Special Education of the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar). The research has dealt with the linguistic choices made by parents and the people responsible for deaf children in the context of early childhood education. The purpose of the research has been to identify, based on the parents’ and the responsible people’s discourses, what sorts of educational instruction have been selected for such children, as well as if the Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) was used throughout the learning process. The research consists of a case study with a descriptive and qualitative approach. In order to collect the data, we have used semi-structured questionnaires. Four mothers and one father of deaf children enrolled in bilingual schools from three cities located in the countryside of the state of São Paulo have participated in the interview. All the analyses have been conducted based on the philosophies of difference, specifically on the studies of Michel Foucault. We have been able to observe the entrance of the sign language into the family and the social environment, as well as the realization, by the family members, of its importance for the school practices. The discourse of the people responsible for the children still carries a clinical bias, although based on the concern with the social barriers that lead the family members to seek clinical solutions. Therefore, we may claim that, although the discourse according to which deafness is a disability is still present at the parents’ utterances, sign language has been gaining social visibility and is known by the families.