A presença da pessoa com deficiência na família: com a palavra, o irmão

Abstract

This thesis addresses the impact that the presence of a physical disabled person resulting from cerebral palsy causes their brother with typical development. The aim was to understand, from young brothers' life episode narratives, how they experience and/or experienced this fraternal relationship, occurred interactions and the influence that the experience of coexistence produced in their development, their disability perception, also to investigate differences between places experienced by brothers and sisters, and to discuss the repercussions arising from prejudice in siblings' behavior of physical disabled people. Physical disability is understood from the social model and the family as a privileged locus of development, made up of interdependent relationships. The theoretical framework to support the narrative interpretation was the human development bioecological approach. The methodology was qualitative life narrative kind. Participants were 08 (eight) siblings of disabled persons resulting from cerebral palsy, from socioeconomic and cultural upper-middle class, aged between 19 and 29, excluding adoptive brother and who had not grown up together. It was used as data collection instrument a form with questions investigating the informant's profile, their parents' profile and their disabled brother's profile followed by a narrative interview. The results show two feelings that permeate the experience with the disabled person: the feeling of brotherhood and the feeling of fraternity. The first resulted from the interaction between the typical development brother and his physical disabled brother and it has influence in interpersonal relationships, and the second was defined as feelings resulting from the relationship with his disabled brother that will exert influence over their activities, relationship patterns, and played roles in other social environments. They indicate that living with disabled brother brings greater maturity, autonomy and brotherhood to their typical development brother. Likewise, they point out that all interviewed brothers are emotionally involved and take care of each other. It emphasizes how important it is that social resources are available to people in developmental transition situations.