Health in education: biopsychosocial aspects of children with learning disabilities

The aim of this study was to evaluate the biopsychosocial aspects of children with learning difficulties. The research is characterized as descriptive and analytical, with a general sample of students of both genders, between the ages of 7 and 10 years. In addition, these students were enrolled and repeating the first year of fundamental education in San Jose city of State of Santa Catarina, in 2006. The sample selection was planned (n=52) among three educational establishment of the urban perimeter. A psychology form was used to collect the data (pre-, peri-, and postnatal information), further than social-economic characteristics and familiar instruction); analysis of the reading and writing form TALE; physical capacity tests following the protocol PROESP-BR and motor capacity tests through motor development scale (ROSA NETO, 2002). The statistical data had been stored in the database of Excel program; the nutritional condition was identified through IMC from the growth and percentiles curves tables of NCHS (2000). To verify the additional components of physical capacity, descriptive statistics were used, such as the frequency distribution, percentage, standard deviation, mean and median. To verify significative differences between groups, statistical analyses were done using Student s tests as independent samples. In the motor capacity evaluation, the motor age variable relative data and the motor quotient for each one of the evaluated areas had been calculated and stored in the informatics program Motor Development Scale EDM (ROSA NETO, 2002) to obtain tables and graphs of the analyzed sample. The data was analyzed later through GraphPad Instat software complemented by GraphPad Prism 3.0 version by means of the distribution analysis of simple and percentile frequencies, mean, variation, standard deviation, median, minimum and maximum value. To compare motor capacity between two groups (G1 and G2), the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was used to check the normality of data. The t-test for independent samples were used and the differences were considered to be significant when p<0.05. The results showed that the psychological characteristics agree with the aspects pointed out in the literature relative to children who experience learning difficulties. The school performance demonstrated a cycle in which the children that failed that year persisted in a weak knowledge, with more than 90% of difficulty; the physical capacity in the company of the nutritional state, presented a eutrophic profile of IMC and more than a half of the group with a good aerobic and flexibility resistance. However, the quickness and the explosive power of inferior members had been under of the satisfactory zone. In the evaluation of the motor capacity, the group was classified like normal-low , with negative age of 12 months, and high difficulties in the chronological and space organization. When comparing the motor quotients aspects between repeaters (G1) and recidivists (G2) groups, relative to the motor quotients, there were statistically significative differences higher for the G1 group in the general motor quotient, global motricity, physical system and chronological organization. The cross laterality of G2 group revealed a proportionality to the set, or better, evidencing its relation with alphabet problems.O objetivo deste estudo foi avaliar aspectos biopsicossociais de crianças com dificuldades de aprendizagem. Pesquisa caracterizada como descritiva diagnóstica, de campo; tendo como população os escolares de ambos os sexos, com idades entre 7 e 10 anos, matriculados e repetindo a 1ª série do ensino fundamental na rede municipal de São José/SC, em 2006. A seleção da amostra foi do tipo intencional (n=52) entre três estabelecimentos de ensino do perímetro urbano. Para coletar os dados foi utilizado um formulário psicossocial iinformações pré, peri e pós-natais; além de características sócio-econômicas e de instrução familiar); um formulário para análise da leitura e escrita - TALE; testes de aptidão física seguindo o protocolo PROESP-BR e testes de aptidão motora através da escala de desenvolvimento motor (ROSA NETO, 2002). Os dados foram armazenados na planilha de dados Excel; o estado nutricional foi identificado através do IMC pelas tabelas de curvas de crescimento e percentis do NCHS (2000). Para verificar os demais componentes da aptidão física, utilizou-se a estatística descritiva, por meio de distribuição de freqüência, percentual, desvio padrão, média e mediana. Para verificar diferenças estatisticamente significativas, fez-se a análise inferencial através do teste "t" de student para amostras independentes. Na avaliação da Aptidão Motora, os dados referentes às variáveis das idades motoras e dos quocientes motores para cada uma das áreas avaliadas foram calculados e armazenados no programa informático "Escala de Desenvolvimento Motor" - EDM (ROSA NETO, 2002) para a obtenção de gráficos e tabelas da amostra analisada. Estes dados foram analisados posteriormente através do software GraphPad InStat complementados pelo GraphPad Prism versão 3.1, mediante a análise de distribuição de freqüências simples e percentuais, média, variância, desvio padrão, mediana, valor mínimo e máximo. Para a comparação da Aptidão Motora entre os dois grupos (G 1 e G 2), utilizou-se o teste de Kolmogorov-Smirnov para testar a normalidade dos dados. O teste t para amostras independentes foi utilizado, com nível de significância p