Pelas pontas dos dedos: uso de peças anatômicas plastinadas no estudo da anatomia humana para estudantes com deficiência visual

Abstract

The insertion of the plastination technique brought the possibility of obtaining anatomical pieces that are odorless, non-toxic, resistant, and with an aspect very close to their natural state. With the adoption of this technique, there is the possibility of safe handling of these parts, which can favor the teaching of Anatomy for people with visual impairments. Thus, the present research aimed to investigate the performance of students with visual impairment in the use of plastinated anatomical parts for the study of the Anatomy of the nervous system. It is an actionresearch, exploratory, descriptive, quantitative, which was developed with sighted and visually impaired students in 3 elementary schools in the city of Fortaleza, enrolled in the 6th to 9th grade level. After applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria, the sample consisted of 234 students who were divided into 6 groups, 2 of them being sighted students, 2 blindfolded sighted students and 2 visually impaired students, which were distributed so that the groups had participants from all educational levels. Subsequently, they were subdivided into the use of plastinated parts and synthetic anatomical models. After dividing the groups, the research was carried out in 3 stages. In step 1, a pre-pedagogical practice questionnaire was applied, followed in the second step, with a theoretical-practical class by the researchers, using plastinated pieces and synthetic models of the central nervous system. In step 3, the students answered the questionnaire applied in step 1 again. The data obtained were analyzed using descriptive statistics and expressed as absolute frequency and percentage or mean and standard deviation. The distribution model of this work was studied by exploring normality through the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. Quantitative variables and mean number of correct answers were compared using Student's t-test, Mann-Whitney, Wilcoxon, Kruskal-Wallis, followed by Dunn's post-test. After categorizing those who obtained an improvement in the correct answer rate, a multinomial logistic regression model (multivariate analysis) was used to verify the independent predictors of this outcome. Categorical data were compared using Pearson's chisquare test or Fisher's exact test, and the analysis of each item was performed using the McNemar test. All descriptive statistics analysis was performed adopting a confidence of 95%. It can be seen that the tactile perception of participants with visual impairment is more developed than the sighted (p<0.001) and the blindfolded (p<0.0001). The average in the participants' post-test was higher in the groups that used plastinated pieces (p<0.05). We conclude, therefore, that the use of plastinated pieces promotes a better understanding of the anatomical constitution, appearing, therefore, as an effective teaching resource for students with or without visual impairment. In addition, these present a more developed tactile perception than sighted students.