VERUSKA DE PAULA (EDUCAÇÃO INCLUSIVA NA PRÁTICA: DORES, SOLUÇÕES E MITOS) – PODPEOPLE #254

[Music] [Music] [ Music ] [Music] Before we begin, I’d like to ask everyone here to subscribe to the channel, share our content, and hit the bell to receive all the updates. Okay? Because then we’ll be able to produce more and more episodes, which will be very beneficial for everyone . Our guest today is a pedagogue focused on special education, with over 30 years of classroom experience and over 20 years of experience in specialized educational services. She’s a mother, speaker, teacher trainer, and creator of an online course that has already impacted thousands of teachers across Brazil. Here’s Veruskaca de Paula. [Music] [Music] Hello, everyone, welcome to another episode of Pod People, the most-watched mental health podcast in Latin America. Do you have or know a neurodivergent or neuroatypical child with TEIA, ADHD, decalcholia, or dyslexia who needs specialized educational support? Well, you probably do, and you know that when this happens, it’s a big problem. To talk about this, we brought in psychopedagogue Verusca de Paula, who knows everything. So, take this opportunity to ask all your questions. How are you, my dear? Everything’s great. Thank you so much for accepting our invitation. I want to thank you for this invitation. I felt very honored to be here with you. Because so many people need it, right? Yes. And things are changing very quickly. The diagnosis itself, for example, of the ASD spectrum, which we’re going to talk about, has changed. So the number of students diagnosed has increased at an incredible rate. Schools aren’t prepared for all this, so we’ll talk a little about it. Today ‘s episode is being collaborated with GNTEC, a pioneering company in pharmacogenetic testing in Brazil. Have you ever heard of pharmacogenetic testing? I’ve heard of it, yes. Yeah, I have a relative who did a test like that to find out which medication was best for his depression. How cool. And did it work? No. It works. It’s funny how people think this is something new. Many years ago, if I’m not mistaken, 2013, 2014, or 2015, a Globo reporter who works in New York, Pontual, right, Jorge Pontual, is that it? He said for the first time that he had been treating depression for over 10 years and had no results. So he went to a doctor in New York, and the doctor ordered, you know, a pharmacogenetic test, made the change, and it worked. And at the time, he said, and everyone, what is this? What is this? But Genitec has been in Brazil since 2013, right? So, I’m a witness to this because, for example, I did my pharmacogenetic test and a general one because after a certain age, we start to accumulate a variety of options. And if I needed an antidepressant, I was screwed, Verusca, because I respond to practically none of them. And that was cool, because when I went through menopause, I didn’t respond, right? And that’s when I started thinking about magnetic stimulation. So today I know I respond to three. So if I need it, I already know it’s cool because in the case of my relative, he sometimes had several symptoms and didn’t know, he kept switching medications, more trial and error. And then with the test, it became much easier for him to know exactly which medication he was most receptive to. And because some people respond to almost nothing, really. And there’s a cool thing about the GNIT test: it not only tells you the best medication for you, right? Based on your genes, but also tells you the dose, because you need to know if you’re a fast or slow metabolizer. And this means you have to increase or decrease the dose and not just follow the dose that’s there. And it also tells you the level of side effects due to the substance. So you can get it right, very individualized, very individualized, you can get it right. Now, there are people who say, “Ah, but I have to do it. If you ‘re on your treatment and everything is fine, OK, everything is fine. Now, when you start, one doesn’t work, another doesn’t work, you start to get afraid, right, of taking the medication. It’s a very valid option. And we have Genitec, which launched psicogeniteia pro. Look, that’s cool, right? Wow, in When parents find out about this, they’ll be… Look, how cool. What is it? Just tell us about psychogenics. Look, we know that teia, first when they’re children, it’s very difficult for children to say what they’re feeling, especially nonverbal teia, which we know about. So, waiting for them to say the side effect, what they’re feeling, is very difficult. And Teia has many comorbidities, right? We know that it usually comes with ADHD, ODD, and insomnia. So, within this medication trial for autism spectrum disorder, they test psychotics, psychostimulants, non-psychostimulants, antidepressants, mood stabilizers, sleep modulator agents, which we know have a lot of sleep disturbances, and also cannabinoids, because that’s what people say, CBD, but there’s a lot of CBD. Within CBD, there are many options, and we need to know. And many AUT patients respond to some types of cannabinoids, cannabinoids. We always say CBD, but they’re cannabinoids, and beta blockers, which we sometimes have to use. So, it comes very complete. I usually say that if you have associated ADD, you’re already being tested. And you know what’s cool? I think parents will really like this, because often, when they arrive at school, we ask, “How’s the medication going?” Because we see that the child is dysregulated, or that they’re not sleeping, or that they’re more aggressive. No, I’m giving it, but it doesn’t seem to work. It doesn’t seem to work. I’ve already changed it, I’m going back to the doctor. He said to wait 15 days. No, it didn’t change anything. Maybe you’re in this struggle, it would save time, time and money, because there’s also this wear and tear of Viacra, it won’t provide that stability. And many teas, when I was in the clinic, I used mood stabilizers and they improved a lot, which is something people don’t consider. I had many teas that stabilized with carbolithium, but in doses very different from bipolar ones, for example, very small, and it worked very well. So it’s a good opportunity, you’re going to win. Wow! Today I hope you can use it with a patient, with someone who will make great use of it. Collection is very, very easy, okay? It comes with a little soap in the shape of a cotton swab that you—let’s see if it appears there— the box comes all sealed, everything is in order. And you do it, look, inside the mucosa of the cheek, we pull for 1.5 minutes on one side, 1.5 minutes on the other, just passing it. Once finished, put it in this little tube, shake 10 times, and that’s it. This could be a game changer in the life of a doctor. Seal. Seal. Send it to the lab, the postage is already paid, and you literally receive it. I’ll film it, okay, my student and I’ll send it to you. Do it. If he’s doing it, it’ll be great. And 15 to 20 days later, you’ll receive everything correctly. And the good thing is that the person has access, for example, whether the mother or you yourself, you can call the lab and there are specialized people there, a doctor who explains the result, okay? And also the prescribing doctor can make direct contact and they will guide you. Look, the best option is to indicate that it is this one, this one, this one. And there’s a really cool thing: they also offer a 15-hour course for doctors who happen to not be familiar with this testing, right? Free of charge. Today, there are over 4,000 doctors. So it’s knowledge worth accessing. Definitely. Both laypeople can know it—there’s a layman’s explanation, of course—and healthcare professionals, okay? Hey, Bru, and for those watching our show today, let’s go, Bia. Everyone watching P de Pipo here has our Qcode coupon on the podcast screen, over on the genttec.med.br website , and you get a discount on pharmacogenetic testing. And for those watching on Spotify, we’ll tell you how to sign up too, since you haven’t seen it, right? GNTEC H. Exatamente.br. There’s also Instagram, people, tests with Temudo. Gentec tests. There’s also Instagram for those who want more information. But there’s our coupon, you can find it on the screen or the link in the description. That’s perfect. And there are several others. There are tests, for example, for depression, there are tests for depression medications, for anxiety, there are tests for cardiology medications , for people with heart disease. It’s a really cool variety, right? And it’s always like this, You can pay in several installments. I think that for those who are struggling with things, and it’s not working, it’s worth it, my dear. Let’s go. The challenge of specialized educational services. What did you choose pedagogy with in mind? Did you go into all these difficulties? Not really. Not at all. When I chose pedagogy, I wanted to be a teacher. Yum. And so I started when I was little. My mother used to say, as she says, that when I was a child, there was an uncle of mine who saw me playing and she said, he said, “Nan, this girl is going to be a teacher and she’s going to be a great teacher.” So my mother always said, she says this, she says it all the time, she says: “She’s going to be a great teacher.” I said, “Mom, Dr. Ana Beatriz invited me to participate in the podcast, but your uncle said you would be a great teacher. And so I had this dream of being a teacher. OK, I went. But what did you see? Teaching dolls. I had a little patient who put all the dolls on a board and taught all the dolls and no one could interrupt. He said he saw me playing. I don’t know exactly what he saw in me, but right then he said, “You’re going to be a teacher.” And then I grew up with this idea, but not because of that, but I grew up with this idea of being a teacher because I liked explaining things to other people. I think because I didn’t know I had dyslexia or ADHD at the time, I needed to explain to someone what I had learned so I could learn, consolidate the learning. Yes, consolidate the learning and make it easier, because it was so hard for you. It was so hard that I kept thinking, how can I talk? this for the person, this at school with my classmates during group study time . So I said: “Let me teach you the subject.” He said: “Ah, I think I have a knack for this. I’m going to be a teacher.” But there you go, I studied teaching, I started working as a teacher, and then I realized the challenge was huge. Wow, too big. Too big. And then what I say was a big turning point in my life was when I had been teaching for about three years, I went to get a teacher, what is it like when a teacher is a substitute? Yes, yes. A teacher was on leave, psychiatric or maternity leave. Then I found out, and then when I went to teach this class, there was a boy there, and the boy was very different. I had never heard of autism, I had never heard of a neurotic child, right? That was 20 or 28 years ago. Pedagogy doesn’t teach that in college, no, there isn’t. If there is, there are a lot of them now. Exactly. But for you, nothing, nothing, nothing. We didn’t, no, we didn’t have any strategy in that sense. And then that boy, he was very different. He banged his hand on the table and spun around. He banged his hand on the table and spun around. That, that symptom of movement for the sake of movement, right? Spinning around, spinning around. And I, I didn’t know what it was. And for me, he was like, no, this guy is doing it, he wants to make me angry, he has to. Which is the teacher’s first line of reasoning, right? Like, he wants to disrespect me, he wants to disrespect me. No, this boy is trying to get on my nerves. And then I’m like, “Sit down, boy,” and the boy doesn’t sit down. And I spent the whole class, sit down, boy, sit down. He didn’t do the math. When it came to doing the math, it was the second grade. And he was verbal. He was verbal. He could do all the math in his head, but he didn’t do the reasoning on paper. And I’d say: “Where is it? Do the math.” No, I won’t do it.” Because at that time, I didn’t know he also had a motor impairment. So I thought, wait a minute, okay? Hair got in there, got in my eye. I didn’t know he had a motor impairment, so he couldn’t do the math, but here in his head, in art, in recording, in assembling, but in his head he would go and give the answer. But I learned that if the boy can’t do it, he won’t do the math, because he’s cheating, he doesn’t consider, he’s copying from someone else. And it was a fight, a fight. It was, it was, it was unbearable. And I said like this: “No, it’s not possible. Every night this boy goes home and thinks like this: “How am I going to bother the teacher tomorrow? See?” I thought, I thought, I thought he trained at night, he came home and said, I don’t know why she doesn’t understand me. Oh, exactly. I said, “No, tonight he thought, ‘Today I’m going to get an A in my class on how to torment this teacher,’ and he tormented me. Uh-huh. And I said, “No, my God, I don’t want to, I don’t want to.” The school, like, the guidance counselor, the principal, no one said anything along the lines of, look, we asked for an evaluation, none of that, there was no such thing. It just existed that the teacher took the sick leave and no one wanted to stay in that class, and I was parachuted into that room and it was 15 days. I said, “No, I spoke to the principal, I’ll resist, but it’s very difficult, I’ll resist. When it was the end of the 15 days, I said, it’s over. She said, “No, she renewed until the end of the year.” Then I said, “Oh, no, no, you ‘re staying, my dear, because no one can stand this class and you’re staying, for God’s sake, You will, you will, my daughter. Wow, we’re praying for you. You will, you will, you will.” Look, there was a day when he fell asleep in the living room. Do you know what I did? Hmm. When the boys said, “Auntie, he’s sleeping.” By the time I saw him, I had already answered, whoever wakes up, he’ll be grounded. I said, “Like this.” I said, “No, guys, I don’t want to be a teacher for this, to ask God for the boy to miss class. I asked God for him to miss class, it’s wrong, right? No, it’s not. Hey, how can I expect my student to miss class? That’s not what I was trained for, and also to get very angry. Then I said, “No, it’s wrong, I have to go get him.” He was probably sleeping because he was starting to be medicated, something like that, I don’t know what was going on. Nobody knew anything, no. Nobody knew anything. The mother, the mother just asked for help. Yes, her little eyes just kept saying, “Help!” She didn’t know what to do either. The teacher was desperate, the mother was desperate. At that time, more than 25 years ago, we hadn’t heard of autism. I had never seen anyone, and neither did she know he had it. Years later, we met and said, “Verusca, it was autism.” And then we went to do it. How old was he at the time? He was about 12, 11, or 12 years old. He was a boy. I say that that year I suffered with him, but he suffered with me. Definitely. Everyone suffered. The school suffered, you suffered, the mother suffered, the teacher suffered, the student himself suffered. What you’re talking about is a lot of suffering. I say, if I had watched a podcast like that back then, for example, it would have made a difference in my life. I would have said, “Whoa, this is stereotyping.” He’s trying to self-regulate. Exactly. The self-regulation movement. He might not record it because he might have a motor impairment, and if he’s doing the math, he can handle it. I’ll go, he’s smart, he’s intelligent, he’s capable. He’s capable. I’ll validate his ability and encourage him. Exactly. So I’ll maybe go to math for him. The answers can be oral; they don’t need to be recorded. I could have made adjustments that I didn’t because I didn’t know how. So I started looking for ways to avoid going through that, because I never wanted to feel what I had again. I felt like the worst teacher in the world. And the worst part is that my classmates, without any guidance or information, also didn’t know how to behave. It was fighting every day. I had to break it up; it felt like a cockfight in the classroom. It was fighting every day. Because the other students are like: “But why can he spin around and I can’t talk? And why can’t he? Because he has no information. He doesn’t have any. And then the boys would fight. He would hit, he would hit the boys’ tables and spin around too. It wasn’t just his table, no. He would go from one to the other, hitting and spinning, hitting, spinning. Think about it, kids at that age don’t forgive. I was so unbearable. And I started saying: “Guys, I have to have something.” And that’s when I started to understand. This year is over and over. It was like that, no one managed to do it, it was a disaster for everyone, including the kids. There was no happy ending, Not for him, not for me. It’s over. I’m free. I just thought, thank God I’m free. But didn’t I think about who the next victim would be? I felt sorry. I felt sorry. But then I started studying in this area, and a colleague of mine was going to set up a specialized educational service center in my city. And she saw I was in this search and invited me to go to the center. So I was the first teacher at the center, it’s been 20 years, it’s going to be 20 years. You had no idea, right? Nothing. I fell in like a parachute. Oh, like, specialized service. Specialized educational service. I fell in like a parachute, you know when someone falls in like a parachute. I fell there, I said, “My God, I don’t know anything.” Fate, right? Because you run away from the boy and then you end up in a specialized education center. Then she said, “Verúsca studied psychopedagogy, so if you had any students, send them to her.” And I said, “My God.” So, since I already sent Verusca, let’s call Verusca to the Specialized Educational Assistance Center. Wow, I remember when I started, I said, “Oh my God, I don’t know anything, I’m here.” And then there were only Macam books, no podcasts, no YouTube, nothing for us to post. There was something you could do directly, right? Like today, people go to your Instagram, direct, and say, “So, wow, it helps so much. It helps so much.” Yes. So when I started working, I had a lot of questions, and then I discovered why when you’re a specialized educational assistance teacher, which we call “AE” for short, the “AE” teacher. And then I was an AE teacher, the AE teacher assists, Thank you, love. They assist the student, they assist the student’s teacher to guide that student in the classroom. They guide the parents. So, I was the teacher who should have been guided, but now I was the teacher who would guide. Then I said: “My God, this friend who founded this center, did she have this idea? She had started it, we started it very close. So , she was building it, she created it, you know what it means to create a structure that today is a mega-structure from scratch. She was very courageous and she knew I could handle it, she’s a pioneer. The work she did was incredible. And so much so that today there are several cities in Brazil that are starting specialized educational services. It started last year and we’ve already been working in specialized educational services for 20 years. Today it’s a gigantic center, you have to see the beautiful center, it was considered one of the largest AE centers in Brazil. Even consuls from other countries have come to see several. Lucielmo Lacerda went there to see the center, he was delighted with the work that is done there, but it started like that, like that. And then we don’t know anything, but we’re looking for something. Yes, but then the MEC invested in the training of these teachers, so it gave several We did postgraduate courses, she did it, she talked, she made us study, and we studied and studied a lot, a lot. So I started working like that, I even remember one time, there was even a funny situation, as soon as I started, I was dying to meet the students, desperate to schedule, to make appointments. And then there was me and a deaf teacher who also worked with Libras. Then the secretary came, there was a story, the secretary came, grabbed a boy and sat him down in front of me, and said: “Ah, your student has arrived, opened the door and sat him down.” And at the time, I didn’t know how to use any assessment tools yet, so it was more improvised, trying to get to know this student. So I started asking him like: “Hi, how are you?” What’s your name there?” Yes, he was deaf. How old are you? He was friendly. Then everything I asked, he answered. I was like: “Wow, he’s very serious.” But I didn’t know he was deaf. So they didn’t even tell you. Nobody knew. The secretary didn’t know who he was. Nobody knew. They didn’t even tell you. You didn’t know. Then she just said there was a new student, she thought it was mine. And then I said: “I’m writing it down there, very serious. He doesn’t understand when he speaks, he doesn’t speak and so on. No. So everything I asked, I put down There. He doesn’t understand this, he doesn’t understand that. Then, when I was there, terrified of the boy, the secretary came. Verus, this student of Professor Verusco. I said, “Oh my God, he’s not mine.” And then it was like that, very quickly, I had to start racing against time so I wouldn’t let the teachers down. I had to teach the teachers. And then I started searching, searching, and I also started doing a lot of teacher training. And I remember one day he said, “Verusca, you need to guide this teacher here to do the PEI.” Uh-huh. We called it PDI. In the state of Minas Gerais, the PEI is called PDI, which is the individualized teaching plan. And the PDI is the individual development plan. It’s like I’m going to teach a second grader, a second grader in elementary school. So, I already know what I’m going to work on, because I pick up the book. Let’s imagine, the book is 200 pages long, so I have four semesters. I’ll work 50 pages per semester and finish this book here, teaching everything in the entire curriculum to that student. But if in this class there’s a student who doesn’t follow this curriculum, I have to teach them what they need to learn. It won’t be in this book, and what they can. And what they can and what won’t be in this book. I’ll have to make a different plan, but this plan can’t be improvised, it has to be written. And it’s written in this plan, an individual development plan or an individualized teaching plan. Because a lot of people say, “What do I do first? Do I do PEI or PDI?” I said, “Neither.” Both. Actually, they’re both the same thing, right? Just different names for the same instrument, because Brazil is so big. And then they asked me to do it, to guide the teacher in doing this. I didn’t know this plan, I didn’t know. I felt so bad, you know? When you feel like such a bad teacher, so bad, I was like, “Oh my God, like, guys, I’m a fraud. I’m a wimp. I’m terrible. I went home devastated. I was like, “No, I have to know how to do this. I have to know how to do this.” And then I started researching, learning , and creating a methodology to easily make the payment. I created methodologies to teach teachers, because when I was training teachers, they told me everything I felt and what they said. They said: “I wake up in the morning not knowing what I’m going to teach this student.” I said: “Man, I felt that.” This wasn’t a PEI, for example, it wasn’t from the MEC, it was produced by the school. Do you know when the term PEI first appeared in a national document? No, 2024, last year. Yes, it was the resolution, the protocol, a guideline from the National Council of Education called Opinion 50, which was approved at the end of 2024. It’s been implemented in the United States for over 50 years. Wow. And now, 50 years later, it appears with this expression in the guidelines in the LBI, which is the Brazilian Inclusion Law, saying that you There must be individualized strategies. It doesn’t say which ones, it doesn’t say what the document is, it doesn’t say what type of change, it doesn’t say anything, it’s very vague, but it only came out last year in a report from the National Education Council. So when I was 20 years old, I was way ahead of Brazil, without knowing it. I understand. Yes. Because of a need that was imposed on your life. It was imposed. And then along this path , we started, we started training the teachers and I saw that they had the same difficulties as me. And this teacher who is there in specialized educational services, they also have to make a plan. There are many acronyms. This plan is called PAE, which is a specialized educational service plan. So, the classroom teacher has the plan: what am I going to teach my student here? And the AEE teacher, when the student is in AE, will tell me what I’m going to teach my student while they’re in my classroom. Hold on. But let’s go, one thing is the PDI. Yes. Okay. You teach this to the teacher, the teacher of AE, he’s from specialized education. That’s it. From specialized educational services. That’s it. Let’s talk so Lego can understand. That’s it. It’s true. It is. Yes. Otherwise, we’ll be like doctors. Everyone’s talking, tag-along. People speak Portuguese, right? Let’s talk so everyone can understand. First, the PDI, which is the individualized development plan, is this taught to teachers? It should. I understand. It should. I’ll tell the teachers in my school system. Hold on. But this is for students with neurotypes, which are, well, we call the target audience of special education, which today the law says are students with disabilities. All visible and non-visible, disabilities, disorders like autism spectrum disorder, high abilities, and giftedness too. So, the law includes those here who will be entitled to this specialized educational service. That’s it. Specialized educational service. So, for example, the rest who don’t have it continue there with their standard planning. Let’s put it this way. Specialized educational service is a special education service. It’s a classroom that works. Got it. Got it. And the plan is what will work. Let me explain this better. Let’s get this out of the way so people can understand, because otherwise, it’s going to be like people going to their child’s school, “I want my PI,” “I want my PDI,” “I want my AE,” “I want my AE.” They have to understand what they’re saying, otherwise they’ll ask the wrong place. They’ll even talk to the inspector who’s greeting the child at the door. They’ll talk. True. There’s a child who arrived at school, “Uh-huh.” And she has a disability, okay? Either T-shirts or high abilities, giftedness. So this child has the right to study, she’ll have dual enrollment. She’ll be enrolled twice at school. Got it. She’s enrolled in the regular classroom. Uh-huh. And she’s enrolled in specialized education. So, she goes to school. Let’s say she’s there in the morning with the regular teachers—geography, early childhood education, elementary school—and in the afternoon she returns for after-school classes. She returns for specialized support. Then we can discuss what we’ll do for this student. Just to clarify, they’ll have this specialized support once or twice a week at a scheduled time. So, they study here and are enrolled in both. Here in the classroom, they’ll have access to a specific plan for what they need to learn, because sometimes what they need to learn isn’t necessarily what ‘s planned for others. Think about an autistic, nonverbal student in second grade , and they’re studying there, learning addition with reserve. I get it. They don’t even know numbers, so they won’t learn addition with reserve. So, what will they learn? It has to be written down in this plan, right? This special education teacher, who is the specialized educational support teacher, when he receives this student, he will determine what the student needs to learn, what is the level, right? What is the developmental level? Development, what are the needs, because sometimes the need is to activate motor functions, for example, to go to the bathroom alone. Exactly. To brush his teeth. The issue of locomotion, self-care, self-care. He will assess what this student needs and will guide this teacher here, saying to him: “Look, this student needs, for example, alternative communication, AAC, right, alternative communication. So I create this alternative communication here, together with a support network that is never alone, and teach this teacher how to use this alternative communication in the classroom.” It’s an example, okay? And then I also, as a special education teacher, have to plan what I’m going to teach during the time he comes here. So this is the special education plan. So there are two plans. There’s a plan for the classroom and a plan for the resource room for this activity, and for the other enrollment, for dual enrollment. There’s this dual enrollment. We also call this room AE, we call it a multifunctional resource room. Yeah. So, within this room, the MEC sends the room with various materials, according to what the school writes in the student census. Oh, there are blind students, so they’ll send Braille resources, there are several specialized resources. to work with this student. So, the student continues attending the class, the general class, and he has a second enrollment class. Second enrollment, which would be specialized activities after school, is because it’s not a substitute, it doesn’t replace. I get it. It’s complementary, it works together. Yeah. So, this student here, but I don’t, the student doesn’t need a diagnosis to have the AEE and PI. I get it. Because there are students who don’t have a diagnosis, but the teacher sees that they need it. I get it. Imagine if you have to wait for an autism diagnosis, which sometimes comes when they’re 7 or 8 years old, because they missed it in early childhood education. When they get to elementary school, they don’t keep up, but their family sometimes lives in a rural area or doesn’t have the financial means, or due to misinformation, for various reasons, but they need it, so they don’t need a diagnosis; it’s their needs that will determine whether they get this care or not. I think that’s really cool. I think it’s really cool, but I think it’s a very arduous task for a teacher who actually knows they have needs, but they’re kind of playing in the dark. They’re providing answers to functional needs. I think it starts by reestablishing functions, but in a vacuum, because often, for example, it’s an intellectual disability, an intellectual disability within autism. Yes. It’s an intellectual disability with attention deficit, with descalculia, with dyslexia. That’s why there needs to be a support network. Exactly. So, when the teacher in the regular classroom identifies that a student isn’t keeping up, they have to write a report explaining what they’re observing. And then when they arrive at the AE, they have to actively seek out, you know? They have to really talk to the family, look at the health center, because then they have to seek out a professional so that this professional can diagnose the situation or not. Yeah. Or a psychologist specialized in testing. Yeah, right? At this center where I work, for example, I’m still an AE teacher; I’m in the classroom. This center has a special needs psychologist who does the testing, who does the testing, there’s a psychologist there, but not all networks have this, which is so necessary, right? It’s so necessary. It’s necessary. Testing is sometimes even more important than an assessment. This center, for example, has an occupational therapist. Yeah. A physiotherapist. Yeah. There is, there should be, right, a speech therapist, because there are openings, but there’s no one willing to take them. You see, because often the issue is that the pay isn’t satisfactory. I get it. And then this student too, sometimes he has the right to have someone accompanying him in the classroom, which today has been the great challenge of inclusive education, one of, you know, many. Education, in fact, is reaching a point where something is going to explode, it’s about to happen at any moment, because we’ve worked for years to free students from exclusion and bring them out of anonymity, right? Because they weren’t, it’s as if they didn’t exist, because some people say, “Ah, but that didn’t exist in my time, maybe they wouldn’t even reach school.” They weren’t there; some families isolated them, right? Because there are still families that isolate them, it’s very sad to say, but they really weren’t there. And now they’re on the way to being in school. But I need them, they have to be in school. It’s good that they are, but I have to ensure it’s truly inclusive. Definitely for transformation. What I feel, Verúsca, is that inclusion today is on paper, but it’s not yet in practice. And there’s a long way to go before it works. In fact, I think we have to think beyond what we’re going to do. We’ve come this far, and we’re seeing that it’s not working. I receive messages on my Instagram almost every day, if not every day, from desperate teachers. And teacher illness has reached sky-high levels. Teacher burnout, right? People talk about burnout, and we saw burnout explode in the medical profession, uh, nursing, nursing assistants, cleaning staff during the pandemic. It was crazy, right? Pandemic. Yeah, but the pandemic… The number of burnout cases in schools is enormous, it’s huge, because I’m putting the entire burden on the teachers. All the teachers now because it’s easy to make a law. It’s very easy. I mean, putting it on paper is easy. The issue is creating the infrastructure that makes it work in practice. We don’t have that infrastructure. In Brazil, you have wonderful laws. If you compare them to other countries, our laws are great, but they don’t work because they’re made without the infrastructure being prepared. That’s what’s happening today. So, when we have the most severe students, the most severe ones, for example, there was a wave of APAIs closing, there was still this, there was a wave, and so there’s still a huge struggle to continue maintaining them, budget cuts, and other things. Yesterday, for example, I was at the seminar, I went to speak at the seminar in Southern Minas Gerais, and the seminar’s opening was a PAI marching band. That’s cool. I saw it on your Instagram. Did you see it? I saw a marching band on your Instagram, the beautiful costumes, by you. Beautiful. Everything was beautiful. There was a ballerina. I loved the outfits. Yes, they were beautiful. They were playing drums, and I saw, I said, “Guys, how many skills were developed for them to be there. For them to be there. Look at the motor skills. Did you see the rhythm they were playing? How beautiful. Perfect. I couldn’t film it, but the ballerina did a cartwheel there, and I said, “Guys, how long did you practice?” And the family that was there to watch, like any family, for example, tomorrow I’m going to see my niece Laura’s circus performance . How cool. I mean, I came from another state, right, taking advantage of being here to be able to go there , because it’s important for us as a family, everyone wants to see it, and they too, their parents want to see it too. And if they’re not there at PAI, where will they be, because many there are no longer old enough to be in a school environment. And you see the circus, right? The circus—and circus schools—are very few. This fascinates children and offers the opportunity for motor development, interaction, subjective aspects, humor, understanding, and social interaction—it’s incalculable. Wow, it’s very enriching. Exactly. And here, let’s suppose, a child who does these activities, their learning certainly accelerates in motor skills, interaction, and affective aspects—all of that. So, when I saw that marching band performance, I said, “Guys, this can’t end .” And it’s very painful to see that the psychiatry sector is also dying, hospitals are dying. Where are people going? Where are they going? So, while there’s still the issue, it’s not, oh, why can’t we? We have to eliminate all segregation. Yes, but it’s not segregation, it’s caring for those who are different. For those who are different. I always say that the evolution of a society is measured by how it treats the vulnerable. The es are the most vulnerable because they don’t even know how to defend themselves, they don’t even know how to speak. We are evolving. We are evolving. And then when they, let’s say, the most severe, they don’t go to high school, they finish elementary school. Exactly like that, in fits and starts, they go until elementary school. Then they don’t go to high school. And after high school, where will they go? They will be restricted to the family environment. Exactly. And no, if there is a program like this, for example, you will be learning marching band, painting, modeling. There is something, for example, and depending on the level of autism, uh, the mild level, they have a great facility with what we now call artificial intelligence. Amazing. There could be a revolution with the teias, because they like predictable things. They need predictable things. And where are the artificial intelligence workshops? you have to create, because they could be very productive, very productive, because besides them liking the predictable, in reality artificial intelligence is almost like creating a little robot, which will learn from you, which will do things you want it to do. And it will get to know you, it will understand your personality, it will go apart, this will even create socialization. Think about it An artificial intelligence program talking to an autistic person, responding to them. Of course, it would be interesting. I hadn’t thought about that yet. But it’s so absurd because, well, they have this ability, they have an ability for repetitive tasks. They have a great ability for repetitive tasks. If you have something in a company that has to be done every day like that, give it to an autistic person. That’s why it’s good to know, because if you give an autistic person a position that requires creativity, or flexibility, they will suffer, they will suffer. Flexibility is very difficult for them. Maybe it’s the only thing within the network that you don’t change, you improve, but this rigidity of thought, of behavior, is very difficult. Last week, something so interesting happened. I have a little student with whom I’m in love. He’s level one support. He’s tiny, wonderful, and has significant motor impairment. To this day, he doesn’t know how to tie a knot, not even a bow. And I’m training with him, teaching him how to tie a knot. It’s really cool. And he adores me. I’m in love with him. And he arrived and didn’t want to go in, crying. I said, “Oh my God, what happened?” He balked and hid his face and didn’t want to, didn’t want to go in. So I said to his mom, “Hey, what happened?” He said, “Berusa, why did he leave the house and say he wanted to give you a flower, but I’m late, I couldn’t get the flower, and there’s a garden next to the school.” So I said, “Go there and get the flower, let him choose the flower.” So he went, chose the flower, but everything came back. Exactly. So I said, guys, why should I tell him no, you can get the flower later? He would spend the whole class suffering, he wouldn’t learn, he would suffer, he would spend the whole time there thinking. But I wish I had gotten the flower. I wish I had gotten it, then his attention would have been lost, he wouldn’t have learned anything, right? Yes, I say that in education, even we can’t be iron-clad. No, I think there is one: we have to be flexible to survive. I think that light flexibility is fundamental, even when you have to negotiate the non-negotiable, right? Some things just don’t work. Even so, you’ll have to be flexible in this negotiation. Definitely, right? And you have to be creative, very creative, yes, right? Sometimes you have to activate a character, right? A character they like, a superhero they like, their hyper-focus. There you go. And then you keep going, because if you raise your voice, if you shout, it causes emotional loss of control. It’s over. It’s over. You don’t teach, and the student doesn’t learn. You just keep saying no because no. It’s no because no. No, it goes. And it’s interesting that Teia supports level one, he’s so interested that he says: “I don’t want to talk about this anymore, I don’t want to talk about this anymore, guys. Give me a little time to talk.” Or approach it from another angle. They are the ones who suffer the most at school, more than the two and three support groups. Exactly. But why does the person stay… No, but I want to talk about this now. You have to listen, you have to deregulate, right? And it’s so sad because when you deregulate, every time they have one—we all deregulate, but they perhaps more easily—you take about 6 hours biochemically to stop and mark that moment as bad. Sometimes they don’t even want to go back. Exactly. Or that activity they did, it wasn’t even because of the activity, but that activity I felt so bad that every time I see that activity I get triggered again, the same crisis comes. Oh, it’s a lot, yeah, it’s like that, we have to, that’s why we have to study, we have to train, You have to study a lot. And there can’t be rules that are absolutely rigid. No, for them. Then they’re already rigid, right? Yeah, we were talking about support professionals, that is, when the student has a proven need, they have the right to a support professional, usually at level two and three. So, uh, or also those who have discovered, need, it’s not the diagnosis that will define it, functional need. That’s the functional need. But what happens? Often, it’s happening to receive the diagnosis of autism. The mother, of course, will say, “Oh, he’s autistic, so he has the right to see a professional, and that’s not how it works.” There are some who don’t have the right and don’t need it. Thank goodness. And yes, it’s good that there’s no need, but the mother wants some doubt. I understand. The mother wants it. Because maybe things like, “Look, great, your child doesn’t need it, doesn’t need it, doesn’t need it, right?” That’s a privilege. Yeah. And did you know that it ‘s not the medical report that will define this? What will define the need and the proof of that need? It’s pedagogical, you know? That comes from the school. The school has to decide whether or not to have this professional. And then, sometimes, sometimes, uh, when we say this, some mothers get a little upset, but because the school knows when the student needs it or not, guys, I’m a teacher. If I’m saying it like that, guys, there’s no need. I’m the first person to say whether I need it or not. I need someone here to help me. I’m the first. And if I say I don’t need it, it’s because I can handle it, because I see he has potential. Now, there are students who really need it, but I think the mothers’ fear, Verusca— I keep putting myself in the mothers’ shoes—is like this, right away, students with special needs generally suffer bullying. The more severe the bullying, the more it gets. We had a case in Manaus, right, of a boy who I think even died. Well, and we know that, you know ? It’s very severe bullying. So, I think in the mothers’ minds, there’s something like, if there’s someone there, no one will hurt, no one will hurt, no one will attack my son, no one will attack. And often, we’re putting the onus on trained teachers. Untrained teachers can unintentionally attack—I’m not talking about physically attacking, but verbally. Verbally, without knowing, right? It’s due to ignorance, a lack of verbal atrocities. And there’s something I notice, maybe sometimes it’s vanity, sometimes unpreparedness, sometimes insecurity, eh, when the school calls the parents like, “No, my son isn’t denying anything.” And there’s also the opposite, when the parents go to school, I don’t feel that, no. And not here, in your house, where nothing is happening here. As if it were a competition like this, look where the child, where the boy works well, where he doesn’t, okay? Your problem. In reality, it’s not my problem, it’s not the mother’s, it’s not the doctor’s, it’s not the teacher’s, it’s everyone’s. It’s everyone’s. It’s everyone’s. I see, for example, it’s very easy for me. I’m at the airport waiting for a plane, I see a child there, then everyone gathers around, I don’t know what. Oh, how rude people are, mothers don’t educate. Be quiet. Then soon someone will say something like: “You don’t think so? No, I don’t think so. I don’t think so.” Because I think every time someone does this in a line, it’s to gossip. And I’m not really into that, right? So if someone comes and asks me: “Do you think there’s a problem?” That’s different. Just poking around to complain, right? Then we get on the plane, the same thing. Oh, this child screams. Oh, this child won’t stay there. The other day I was on the plane, there was a baby, a baby in my lap, you know, a lot, crying because he has reflux, crying because he’s hungry, crying because his diaper is on, I don’t know what. A man next to me like, like, I’m going to ask to change seats, that’s absurd, it’s disrespectful. I said: “Guys, what did I say? This man thinks we came from, right? He cried one day, right? People are so intolerant, right? It’s absurd. What do you mean, tell him to shut up? The baby doesn’t exist like that. He was calling a girl. You can tell him to shut up. I looked at the girl and said: “Difficult, right?” Yeah. Just go over there and tell the baby, be quiet. I almost said, “Go on, sir.” Because, like, you were once a baby. Let me remember that, right? You have to have, you have to have, and it’s compassion for this mother too, who is beautiful. Compassion. The mother, poor thing, stayed quiet, stays. The mother getting nervous, stayed, right? Then I went, the person I was complaining in the hallway, so I said, “Sir, do you want to come over here, to my window?” I’ll come over. I stayed by the mother’s side, she’s bothering me. Nothing, don’t worry. If you want, put her here on my lap so you can handle the things you need. She looked at me and said, “Wow, thank you so much.” I said, ” My dear, can you ask God to forgive these people who think this is a nuisance? It’s not a nuisance. How does society see a crying baby as a problem? It’s not a problem. You have to cooperate. It’s like, what can I do to help you? You have to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, right?” That’s what the woman did. I said, “Do you need anything ? I’d like to warm up some water for the bottle.” Then the atmosphere began to calm down, because the rest are the trumpets of the apocalypse. You reminded me of a book called “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.” The author tells how he got on the subway, and usually in his city, everyone who got on the subway was fine, reading the newspaper. At that time, the newspaper was silent, and a man came in with three children. He said the boys had caused terror in the subway, messing with the newspaper, pulling it, screaming, and so on. And then the father of these children was just leaning back, just with his eyes closed. And then someone turned to him and said, “Sir, don’t you think you should do something with your children?” Then he said: “Wow, it’s true. It’s just that we just got out of the hospital and their mother just passed away. I lost my wife and I think they don’t know how to deal with it and it seems like I don’t either.” He says he never judged the other’s actions again. He said: “Wow, we never know what the other is going through, even when we’re at school, a mother comes, I always tell the teachers who are my mentees, I always say: “Guys, you don’t know what’s going on, what is this mother experiencing that she is sometimes armed, uh, questioning? Sometimes she fought against the world so her son is there and then she thinks the biggest thing: “Ah, I’m going to attack, my greatest defense is attack.” that sometimes she is there still questioning this diagnosis, not accepting it, because like, every diagnosis of neurotypy, more or less, uh, the mother, in general, the mother goes through mourning, she goes through because like, it’s not mourning of that child, it’s the mourning of the perfect child that was expected, has arrived. So, there’s a time to adapt to that, which is difficult because some people say, “Oh, no, but there are people much worse off than your child.” Yes, but she’s adapting to that reality of her child, which changes everything. That changes everything, changes her whole life. And it changes because, in general, the father abandons. If he doesn’t abandon, it’s an almost hygienic distance from that child. Some parents don’t, they have to value them. And so it was natural for me to stay together, right? It wasn’t a choice. Oh, we’re going to have a child here. It destabilizes the whole family if there’s no structure to welcome them there. And most don’t have that structure. Exactly. And then we get to the classroom, these mothers sometimes come with many doubts, many questions, and they demand things from the teachers. So I say, people, welcome them with love, not demanding things. You notice that many aren’t demanding things, they’re demanding things from life. Like, why me? Why me? Why with me, right? Why with me? You see, it’s clear. So much so that if you listen, just listen, without intervening, this woman quickly has a moment where she runs out of steam, cries, says, “I’m sorry.” True. True. When you treat them with a lot of love, no, you welcome them. When you welcome them, when you say, “I understand you, yeah, it’s really hard. I understand you.” That’s right. Then they break down, and then you gain a friend, an ally. Break down. Exactly. Because if the family and the school aren’t in tune, it becomes very difficult. Oh, it becomes impossible. It becomes impossible. It becomes impossible. He builds this bridge in the teacher’s resource room, he builds this bridge to help this family understand why the student is there. So, a teacher in the resource room, he helped the student, ideally, when he finishes helping this student, he goes to the mother and says, “Look, Today we work on alternative communication.” In fact, last week I had such an incredible experience with a student of mine, who is one of the most severe I’ve ever had, very severe. He has disruptive behaviors of self-harm and aggression, right, towards other people, and nonverbal . And I was very impressed because he spent many years in school and had speech therapists, no one had ever worked with him on alternative communication. So I went to work, starting to work with him and then I showed him some symbols. This symbol meant mommy. Then I said, “Where’s mommy?” He pointed. I said, “My God, he’s pointing.” I said, “Now it’s time to go. It’s over. There, look, it’s over.” Then he said, “It’s over,” quietly. I said, ” Guys, I didn’t say it.” And he said the word, “It’s over.” Then I went back there. Here, look. And Mom, he, Mom. I said, “Oh my God.” Then I ran there. When it was over, I went to tell his mother. I said, “Look, I’m working. Look, I showed her. That when you show what you’re doing, the results you get, I said to her, “Can you believe he said two words to me today?” When I showed him, he pointed to the sign and said the word, she said, “Wow, that’s amazing, I want that too and stuff.” Because she wants to do it at home with him. And then I see the parents’ delight when they see results. So we have to show them, not just go there and say, “Wow, he was so cute today.” How cute was that? That cute thing was in the game he developed. That’s it. Another very important issue for both regular classroom and AE teachers is to use evidence-based practices, not to rely on guesswork. Because sometimes, for many years, we spent— I spent many years guessing—like, “Oh, my teacher taught me this way, so that must be how it’s taught, I’ll teach it that way too.” And you just keep repeating, repeating a pattern that isn’t entirely wrong, but there are scientifically advanced approaches that can give you much better results. I’m still way behind, for example, in literacy. It’s not that the other one is wrong, but this one is more efficient. Yes. And those with neurotypicality are in a hurry. They’re in a hurry. And sometimes the window of opportunity is right before your eyes. It will close, and if you don’t have the best practice for that moment, they lose. They lose. And I can’t waste time on a skill they could have, a skill that would be useful for life. I can’t waste that time. So I have to focus on what’s right, what works. And what works already has practices, several evidence-based practices. And even this opinion 50, which came out at the end of 2024,4 a first version had been released previously. And in that first version, evidence-based practices were described. Can you believe there was an issue, let’s put it this way, a fight to get it approved, but it wasn’t approved. When it was approved, they removed the evidence-based practices. Why? They did. There’s nothing these days at the Ministry of Education talking about evidence-based practices. In healthcare, it’s like that, it’s obvious to you, but in education, they don’t talk about evidence-based practices. Guys, but education, for me, is a version of healthcare. I didn’t want it to be, but it isn’t. There’s no healthcare without education, without knowledge, it’s not evidence-based. For example, I was taught to read and write using the syllabic method (B with AB with E B). Me too. We were taught to read and write with F with E. It worked for you, for me, and for many people, but it’s not working for many people. We’re like this, if you go to any school today, from 5th grade, elementary school, fourth grade, fifth grade, and ask: “How many students are there who can’t read?” You’ll see a bunch of people raising their hands. Do you believe it? I do. And the thing about these people is that there are a bunch of people who don’t have disabilities. Students without disabilities aren’t learning to read either. So, when I realized this, I said: “Oh, guys, is there something wrong with this? Isn’t this a method?” And then I started looking. Is that method perfect for everyone? Is it? Does it work for everyone? Don’t I need a different method? For whom is it different? Exactly. And that’s justice, right? That’s justice. Treating people isn’t treating everyone the same. Justice isn’t that. It’s treating each person with what’s right for them, what’s most appropriate for them. That’s justice. The law applies to everyone. No, it doesn’t, it doesn’t have to be that way, you know? How do I make a law for someone who doesn’t understand the law? You know? I need to pay close attention to their needs. And then when I started working with my students, I saw that my students couldn’t learn to read and write. And I was struggling, but I was struggling. And then I thought, maybe they’re not learning to read and write because they have a disability, because he has autism. But that started to bother me in a way, I said: “No, guys, there has to be an alternative.” That’s what I discovered: the only evidence-based method is the one not used in Brazil: the phonics method, which students develop with. And then I started adopting it, when I started teaching my autistic students with intellectual disabilities, both those who don’t have it and those who do. So it works for everyone. It’s better for everyone. Scientifically proven, I don’t dispute that it’s better for everyone, even in terms of fluency, because I thought, I taught literacy with one method and then another. Period, it was equal, it wasn’t equal. Those who were taught to read, those who were taught to read with the phonics method, the level of fluency, comprehension, and inference is superior to this method here, because it activates even those who are literate. Even literate, even someone who was taught to read with another method, like me, will have a much higher level of fluency, inference, and comprehension than I did, because it activates other brain areas. Neuroscience has brought this contribution. The phonics method is basically not bad; it works better for many students. However, there are students for whom phonics may not work. In most cases, it works. I had an autistic student who, when I would work with her and use the phonics method, wanted to hit me, she wanted to hit me because she couldn’t stand it. And what have I worked with her? The theory of stimulus equivalence, which is another methodology. I do stimulus equivalence of sounds, I pair the sound, for example, “ball,” the image “ball,” and the written word “ball.” And then she pairs “ball” with “ball,” because they have a strong memory, you know, of memorized, visual memory—visual memory is immense. And so she got this, which worked for her. But then I have to have alternatives. I can’t say whether it will be this one or that one. I have to have alternatives. If this is the best alternative, I’ll work with it. So, it’s like healthcare; you have to have alternative medications. Exactly. You give an antibiotic to one person, it might affect someone else, it might make water, and you have to be ready to make the switch. Yeah, I imagine that. That’s why I’m saying it: health for me, education. Look, look how crazy this is. They’re two sides of the same coin. Think about how crazy this is. One is a child with autism, who’s verbal, who’s learning to read and write, and she’s having more difficulty. And then I teach her like this: F with the fa. That’s phonics, right? That’s the traditional method. F with the fa. Hmm. Stay. Here we go. I’m going to say the word “queue.” F with the l. Fi. L with the la, like “queue.” Queue. Queue. Okay. Then he says “f” with the i. When I say “queue,” you hear the f sound. FF You hear F. What do you hear? You hear exactly fi. I. You hear two sounds. I. You don’t hear F. She keeps looking. Where’s the F? Got it. He said it’s the F with IL. Do you hear L when you’re writing the word “queue”? Oh, there. You hear it, you don’t hear the L, you hear L. So what does the phonics method do? It teaches children the sounds. So it teaches here, look, ia, fila. So it doesn’t put the sound of the letter, it puts the sound of the syllable. It’s not the name of the letter, it’s the sound it makes with another letter. Yes. The sound, I puts the sounds together, the little parts of the sounds, the interaction of the sounds, the interaction. That’s different from saying the name of the letter F and I, it’s not the F and the I, it’s o and I. But look, when I I say f with an l, what’s with? What’s with l + a? What’s plus? It’s the same. What’s the same? So the child starts thinking, man, this must be so hard to write. Look at all the things they said to write such a tiny little thing. It must be so hard. The little word is so confusing for a child. And then when I moved away from this traditional way, I started to see results. I had a student of mine who was 12 years old, his mother had already given up, level two support, she had already given up. So I started working with him quickly. Then I was… What method did you start with him? Phonics. Phonics. I started working with him with phonics and by chance that day I was filming. I put my cell phone out and filmed. Then I, then he went, and when he, I said: “Here’s what’s written.” Then he read it, he said: “I can read.” I said: “Can you read there? I can read.” How beautiful. He stood up. I get goosebumps. Wow, that day I cried, I really did. He started clapping. I can read, I can read. I have to tell my mom I can read. The moment his mom arrived, he ran out screaming, “Mom, I can read. Mom, I can.” Guys, this is a revolution in a person’s self-esteem, you know? I ‘m from Minas Gerais. Every time I go to the beach, I see the sea; for me, it’s infinite. I get it. You know, it’s like the vision I have of a child reading for the first time. They’re seeing the sea for the first time, and the sea has no end, it’s a horizon, meaning what they’ll see after that is infinite. It’s infinite. The possibilities open up. There’s a song by Flávio Venturez, the first time I saw the sea. It’s beautiful. I get so emotional. And imagine he’s in a school where everything is written down, and if he has mild autism or a mild intellectual disability, do you know what happens to him? He’s embarrassed because he knows he doesn’t know. He gives in, he has this perception, he has the perception that others, others, oh, others think I don’t know. Then when he becomes a teenager, he no longer wants an adapted activity, because I ‘m a teenager, teenage hormones. I want to belong to the group, I want to find someone, I need a boyfriend or a girlfriend. I want to appear like I understand, that I know, but I can’t read. So the teacher won’t give me the same activity as the others. She’ll give me a different one because I can’t read. But then I’m outside the group. I’m outside the group. And the group, then comes the bullying. The group will say I’m stupid, that I’m not, and they won’t want to hang out with me. So what does the student do? Then it seems like he’s a rebellious student, because he says to the teacher: “I don’t want to do it. Because it’s much easier for me to say I don’t want to than to say I don’t know. I’m rebellious, I don’t want to, than I’m the idiot who doesn’t know. I don’t know. He won’t say: “Teacher, I don’t know.” He’ll say he doesn’t want to, because then he, I’m in charge, I’m the one in control, I’m rebellious. And then it comes, because he needs to, he wants to learn to read with all his might. I ask several of my students later, you know, students like that who already had no hope of reading. And then I ask: “So, what changed in your life?” He said: “It changed everything.” There was a student of mine who said: “It changed my life.” I said: “Why?” “Because I love theater and I wanted to participate in theater, but I didn’t read the text.” The text he had, so no one gave me the role because I couldn’t read. And now it’s not even about memorizing, he doesn’t I used to read to memorize. I didn’t read. And now I can read the text. Oh, guys, it’s very gratifying. That’s how it is, I’m very passionate. I joke that there are certain things that for us, right, in the health field, in the education field, which I think are equivalent, they’re two sides of the same coin, it’s an Oscar. Something like that, it’s an Oscar award. It’s when you hear from someone that you changed their life in terms of preparing them to be whatever they want to be in life or to reach whatever destination they want to reach. It’s for the future, right? We, I’m educating for the future. Exactly. For the future. It’s very beautiful to be who you should be or who you were born to be. True. If you don’t have an With the right educational intervention, the right medical intervention, you simply undo a person’s destiny. If they were born for something and they don’t, because of treatable, correctable limitations, you didn’t do it, it’s almost as if you wasted someone’s life. This is very serious. It’s a destiny that’s being mapped out there that shouldn’t have been. Exactly. I had a young man who came to me with an intellectual disability, but he was in the EJA ( Youth and Adult Education Program). Yeah. And then he came and I said, “What’s your difficulty? What are you feeling, etc?” Then he said, “Look, my biggest challenge is that I can’t read.” And I’m very ashamed of that. I was already young, in my early 20s, and I’m very ashamed of that. And then I went to see why, to be considered a disability, to have an intellectual disability, he has to have compromised adaptive skills. And he was fully functional. So I said, “Guys, isn’t this dyslexia?” And then I asked for an evaluation, and in fact, I didn’t have a visual disability, I just had dyslexia. So I told him, “Let me explain what you have. This is dyslexia, and it won’t limit you. Let me show you some people you might already know who have dyslexia.” And I started showing people, right? Even from the media who have dyslexia and who learned, and I started showing videos of people who started learning, who learned to read many years later. He said, “Man, I thought my whole life I was stupid. Incredible. I felt like the worst person in the world. Now I know I’m not stupid, I have a disorder. I said, “It’s a disorder.” And the method changes, right? For dyslexics, the literacy method is different, right? Phonics helps a lot for dyslexics, a lot. Of course, you have to use several strategies to work on it, because for example, the letter, let’s say, the letter C is like this, the letter U is the same thing going up. Exactly. Exactly. The letter N is the same thing going down. And he has this difficulty with laterality. So, this down, this up, this to the side. What’s that? The letter W is the M going down. Down or up? And the D? And the D and the P are the worst, because the lowercase D is a little ball with the stick pointing one way, the B is the other. The B goes the other way. But then there’s the P which is the stick pointing down, there’s the Q that’s the little dot for the other. Wow, it’s so difficult. And if we know these nuances, nuances, because many students with disabilities also have dyslexia, which you mentioned about comorbidities, right? There’s dyslexia there too, which we also have to know how to work with. Yeah, yeah, it’s a whole universe, right? In reality, I think that education, like medicine, shows how complex human beings are. It’s complex, and we discover more and more things, because there are people who say, “Oh, this is fashionable now, this is now.” No, it’s because now we can see, right? True. We couldn’t see, right? We couldn’t see so much. 100 years ago, didn’t you have a CT scan? Didn’t you have an MRI? You didn’t have to see how it works. You don’t know that it’s like that. Today, if you find a cyst, a tumor, yes, in a finding exam, you have a chance, right? In the past, my daughter, by the time you got a diagnosis, it was already spread everywhere and coming out through the skin. So, yeah, it’s very interesting. Now, one thing that I think is very challenging is that there will never be enough education experts or doctors to handle the global population and any country in the world. So, I don’t see a solution other than good information, but the information has to be accessible, because if people are taught, a mother when taught to do it with her nonverbal child, point, point simply, he learns. He learns. So everyone has to act, but he doesn’t know that this option exists. Is there such a thing as alternative communication? I had a father here with a nonverbal autistic son and we were talking and he was quiet. Some questions appeared on the screen, he pointed to his father, he was understanding everything. Everything and sometimes there came a time when he asked for paper and things to for the parent to ask. What a beautiful thing. Then I tell the teachers, guys, don’t say it around the student, poor thing, wow, how difficult. He’s understanding, he’s feeling it. Exactly. I have a methodology where I say that the student, for me, the student has to be fit, but not that gym fit, no. He has to be happy in the classroom. For him to be happy, you have to like him, he has to like you, you don’t allow bullying, he has to feel accepted, included. And then comes respect, the respect that he is a human being, that he is there and his needs need to be heard. So, the student is having a meltdown. Just yesterday the teacher asked me, Verúsusca, what’s the difference between a tantrum and a meltdown? Then I said, “Can I tell you the truth? For us teachers in the classroom, it doesn’t matter if it’s a tantrum or a meltdown. It’s about welcoming and not leaving the child in distress. Because if it’s a tantrum, because he wants this little snack here, and I say no and all, and I don’t help the child regulate himself, it will turn into a meltdown. Eventually, the tantrum becomes a meltdown; it reaches a point where he can, it’s emotional dysregulation, he’ll become dysregulated. So it doesn’t matter if I keep trying, no. Here he’s crying because it’s a tantrum, so let him cry. No, here it’s a meltdown. So you won’t know right away. You have 30 kids in the classroom, there’s a kid asking for homework, there’s a kid asking to go to the bathroom, there’s a kid doing a lot of things, and you have one dysregulated student there, you go, oh, it’s not a tantrum, it’s not a meltdown, it’s not to pick up on this child. Perhaps I think the biggest challenge is when this emotional dysregulation imposes itself on you. Self-aggression is the biggest challenge. Perhaps the biggest challenge, as high as hetero-aggression. Aggression, because we’re experiencing many issues of hetero-aggression in the classroom, and this happens. So, the teacher needs—ideally, when they have a student like this —to create a conduct protocol. Exactly. To know how to act. That’s it. This conduct protocol is an interview we conduct with the parents to say, “Hey, Mom, what happens when he gets out of control? How does he get out of control? What’s the worst situation ? He might come over, and how do you calm him down? What can we do here at school?” Because sometimes, if I don’t ask, it will take me a year to figure out whether a hug calmed him down or washing his face. So, when I create the conduct protocol, I’m saving a lot of time and energy. And then this student needs to be happy in the classroom. For him to be happy, I need to ask these questions. He has to be interested. For him to be interested, he has to hurry. We, we, we like interesting things. One thing, I remember I had a little patient who got very agitated after a while. So I negotiated, I went to schools a lot, I had no problem talking to the teachers, I scheduled breakfast on Saturdays, which was the only time I could. Some teachers went, others didn’t. So I sent my team to buy cupcakes and that was it. I said, “Guys, I’m not going to take up much of your Saturday, so let’s do it from 8 to 9:30, then everyone has Saturday off.” So I went and the person came in and said, “Okay, Bia, but you ‘re not in class, but I don’t know what, okay, okay, okay.” Then there was a boy who was a huge challenge because he would become disruptive, start attacking himself and everyone else, it was like a volcano. So I said, first thing, guide all the kids. When this happens, everyone goes out to the playground, okay? And we, you stay with the student right there, like, if you need anything, I’m here. What do you need to get better? And it’s funny, just by everyone leaving, all that encouragement, he would say, “I’m getting better, look, I’m getting better.” Because what was happening? Then everyone would gather around to grab. When they gathered around to grab, the activity, action, and reaction increased. Seriously, right? So it became crazy. She said: “But how can I do that? Or do you do this, what does he like to do here at school?” He loves to sit in the yard watching the birds. When it’s like that, so-and-so, if you want, you can go there. Oh, but what if others think we have a classmate whose brain works differently and that at this moment this is necessary? Like some people need to pee. Uh-huh. Like some people have diarrhea. So I think, “Well, can I do this?” I said, “Look, I don’t know according to the protocol.” I’m putting it, you’re giving me problems and I’m trying to figure out solutions. And there was one who did something very, very serious, very difficult, self-harm. And then I arrived, and he said, “He needs a doctor, right, so we can try to improve this, because it was impulsive.” But if that happens, … But what do I do then? Do you have a blanket? Great strategy. You’re not going to do that, grab him because he’s aggressive. You slowly wrap him in the blanket, so he doesn’t hurt himself, right? And when he’s calm, you take it off. Have you ever had someone say something like: “Oh, but I’m holding him back, what will make him hurt more if everyone decides to do it together? And everyone who catches him at a time like this, stays quiet, stays because the person gets nervous, right? Have you been following the reports related to teachers who hit, hold on? Wow, it was this week, it was that kid who tied the chair to the bathroom. I cried. And but you know, there has to be such a huge lack of preparation, so huge that the teachers are so… it’s very difficult for the teachers, because they really don’t know how to deal with it, they don’t know. And this boy was medicated later, he got much better and I said: “No, you’re not going to do it like you do it, you and he like you were rolling yourself in a rug.” You know that game of rolling yourself in the rug that we used to play? At least I did. Then after he got better, he didn’t do that anymore, he said: “Now I have a rug at home to play this.” He liked it so much that he learned a strategy. Now it’s important that If the teacher was nowhere to be found. I said, “Guys, how am I really going to do it?” We have to be creative and see if it works. Yes, but here we also have to be careful, you know? Why? Yes. Well, in this case, for example, this teacher could write this rug in the conduct protocol and the mother could sign it, because if she says that later, she’s messing around. No. Yes, but the mother was called. That’s it. With the family, there’s something in this business. We can try it at home, we can try it here. And then from that point on, it started working and became the cap joke. Then I even joked that I said: “Show Aladdin.” Oh, at the time, the Aladdin movie had come out, right? So there was magic in that rug. Wow, how cool. Then he wanted to choose the rug. I said: “Okay.” So he… But it had to be said. Of course. So there are teachers who say: “Gosh, what do I do when the student is hitting me?” I had a situation where a student wanted yogurt. And there was no yogurt, and she was my height, taller than me, but stronger than me. When I didn’t realize she wanted the yogurt, I offered her a cookie. When I offered her the mug of milk, she threw the mug. Look, I, look at my clumsiness, instead of stopping there, I offered an apple, or it was easier. What do you want? She was nonverbal. No, but in the sense of pointing, right? She didn’t press, she pointed at anything. Very, very serious. One case like this, she came to hit me, came, came to slap me. When she slapped me, I did like in The Matrix, you know? I dodged the first one, dodged, dodged, dodged. She came with the second one, I did, dodged the second one. When she came to give the third slap, which landed, I thought, do you know when? I don’t know, it seems like I stopped there in time and had a dialogue inside my mind. I stopped in time and thought about the situations, what are the options? What do I have here at this moment? Option one, lose control, get out of control, hold her arm so she doesn’t hit me, because she’s attacking. Then I said, but if I hold her arm, it was so quick with this thought, if I hold her arm, she’ll react either with her head or with her feet, and she’s big, she ‘ll beat me. And then it’ll look like we’re both in a physical fight. I looked to the side and saw a bunch of buildings. I said: “And if someone in a building is filming this situation, they’ll never believe that I’m just defending myself. They’ll say the teacher is attacking the student with autism. If I just stand here, she’ll destroy me, because her caregiver, whose mother was already deceased, she was adopted, her caregiver was all hurt, all hurt. I said: “She’ll destroy me.” And I’m a person who doesn’t like to feel pain. Yeah. That option isn’t good either. The third option, I’ll run away from her. Yeah. And I ran. And she ran after me and I ran faster than her. And I ran, hid in a room and let the staff sort it out there. But I was very upset that day I ran away from her. I was very upset because I said: “My God, what should I have done? What’s up?” So, I face all my challenges and say, “What? I don’t want to go through that again. I get it. Part of an unresolved problem is finding a solution based on classroom practice. Then I took a crisis management course, and it wasn’t even about losing control, right? An advanced course, advanced training, where I became a professional in crisis management. And there I went to the professor, I said: “Professor, this situation happened, what should I have done?” He said: “Ran, in that case, in that case, he said like this.” I said: “But what if she ran after me? He ran faster than her?” He said: “Verusca, do you have crisis management skills? Did you have crisis management skills?” I said: “No, could you hold her arm and distort her arm? Wasn’t there a police officer who went to perform a restraint operation and asphyxiated someone, and they died? To restrain someone, you need training. Where to hold them, because if I grab their wrist, I dislocate their wrist, I have a place to hold them. And in the course, we have physical training in this regard: where I can hold this child, when I hold them, in which situation I can hold them, in what location, and what to do. Then the teachers say: “Then I can’t hold them.” I said: “No, you can’t hold them.” So what do I do? If they come and hit me? I said: “My dear, if you have a student who already has this aggressive behavior, you’re going to stay in the room, like you said, on a rug, you’re going to stay in the room with a pillow, a teddy bear, they’re going to hit you, you protect yourself and go to a place, leave the room and go to a place where you have a support network. Oh, Verusco, but yeah, I can’t. You can’t hold them. It’s just that situations are very difficult. No, no, it’s not easy. Let’s imagine you’re holding a child in class, he pulls his arm, your fingernail is long, and you scratched him. Definitely. And that’s a very serious problem. Definitely. And teachers don’t know. So, most of the teachers I see holding students and are being sued need to have this guidance on how to hold them, how to do this. I saw a video in the United States, and I said, “This teacher was very well trained, it should be here in Brazil.” She was talking to the student in the classroom , and I think she asked for his cell phone, and he didn’t want to give it to her. Then she spoke to him again, and he didn’t want to give it to her, so she went and took the cell phone. As soon as she grabbed it, he grabbed her hair. What did she do, guys? She was a ninja. She grabbed his hand because training teaches this: when someone grabs your hair, you don’t let go of their hand. You hold it until they can’t pull it away. She held his hand on your head, and then he came with his hand on her chest. She held her other hand to her chest and walked down the hallway. In that case, she was stronger than him, right? Because she was bigger, she was smaller. She walked down the hallway where there were other adults to help her. I said, “Guys, she was very, oh, very well trained for this situation.” If it were here in Brazil, it would have been a situation that might even have resulted in a lawsuit. I’m very worried. I’m telling you, the training needs to be improved. No, not really. Teachers don’t have the training to know what to do and what they can do. Very difficult, very difficult indeed. Bru, let’s go to our reporter Pipinho, because then people want to ask questions. Reporter Pipi, this section we have, we have a community called Sustainable Human Being, which has about 2,300, 2,500 people who love knowledge, including professionals, freelancers, and laypeople. And then we announce it 15 days before you go live on your Instagram. How cool. And then they go there, we ask them not to follow your Veruscadepaula @veruscadepa with a car. That’s it. With Paula Souza’s carusca. And then we say, go there and send your questions, okay? After the episode airs, you’re welcome to continue and ask any questions you may have. So, let’s start first, Bruno. First, what do you see as the biggest practical obstacle to the inclusion of neurodivergent students in schools today? Today, I see one of the biggest challenges as students with more severe disabilities. These situations are where teachers really don’t know how to handle these situations. They’re not trained, and there are situations that aren’t the teacher’s job, that go beyond the teacher’s competence. There was a mother who said, “Oh, I want you to teach my son to stop pinching me.” And then, with great love, I had to tell her, “Mom, I’m sorry about this role. I don’t master it. I’m a specialist in teaching and learning. You need a behavioral specialist, a functional analysis, one in the clinical area, and that’s where the clinical team comes in. So, today, I see the biggest challenge is that there’s often a clash between the clinical and pedagogical teams, and it’s been playing out. That’s why this unity is necessary. This unity is necessary. And today, with the online aspect, right, it was allowed, now it’s official, after the pandemic, it was very important for that school in the countryside, why not have an online consultation, look, from a psychopedagogue, a behavioral psychologist, right? Because there’s no point in having a psychologist who doesn’t follow a behavioral line. In this case, I’m not saying the others aren’t wonderful, but this has to be behavioral. It has to be because it’s behavior. It’s behavior, it’s behavioral, a repetition, you know? And for the person to be able to, of course, this revolution is difficult today even in the countryside, for those who don’t have something like this. So, it’s not about gossiping, seeing other people’s lives, who got married, who didn’t get married, who got divorced, no. This is for enrichment. So, if there’s a MEC center in Brasília, a room with several professionals, you can be contacted here, guidance. But that’s the thing, the MEC doesn’t get involved in the clinical part. Yes, but with a partnership, it has to be a third party between the MEC and the Ministry of Health, because the Ministry is there in Brasília, both. If you create a classroom that accommodates two people who speak and get along well, that’s why I’m in favor of it. Specialized educational services can take place within the school itself in a resource room, or they can take place in a center, not at the school itself, in a center. So, instead of having to go to this room, this student goes to the center. In the center, it’s easier to have this support network, because you can imagine, I’ll put someone here in this specialized center, they can have a speech therapist, a physiotherapist—everything can work online today. Verus, we received a speech therapist here who now lives in Portugal, of course. And she sees several people. She adapted methods, right, and apps so she can do it, in this case, she provides training to these parents so they can care for their children, because in some cases, the parents will also have to learn about behavioral issues. Anyway, no. Everything done in school has to be continued, it has to be reinforced outside of school, it has to be, otherwise it won’t work. Because the brain needs this repetition, this coherence. to form new neural pathways. There’s no way. We won’t have compartmentalized solutions, because the brain isn’t compartmentalized; it’s all connected. It ‘s all connected. Thank goodness. So we have to connect all sectors too. These children’s problems aren’t the parents’, the mother’s, or the school’s problem; it’s society’s. That’s what I’m saying. When a child cries, everyone should, everyone cries, everyone should collaborate so that those cries stop. Yes, I’m saying that when there’s a student in the classroom having a crisis, it’s very common for us at the school, let’s say, there’s a student who has a crisis in a classroom , the other teachers are curious to know what happened. It causes a crisis in the whole school. Then everyone goes to the door to find out what happened. And the teacher who’s with that student in crisis feels judged; they’re like, “What did I or didn’t I do to make this happen?” And sometimes it wasn’t. What’s the approach? Is there anything I can help? And the teacher is coming, everyone, let’s all go to the playground, let’s anticipate the Exactly. This school already has to have this, you know? Like, let’s remove everyone because then there’s less stimulation. Maybe this cessation of stimulation already helps self-regulation. Sometimes this student is the one who will show up throughout the year, so I already know that this will happen in that room. So, I already have two people ready. And I tell the rest of them to circulate, because if everyone goes there, as you said in the case of the boy, the stimulation increases and then it feeds back into the dysregulation, everything goes wrong. So I say, people, when there’s a student in crisis, there’s a teacher and suffering, have her pity, get two people up, already be alert, look, first sign, look, you have to do one. There are always very many students who will be the doctors, the psychologists of the future, who are very collaborative. We have to identify these more collaborative students, those who, like, “Hey, come on, come on, come on.” Yes. They’re probably the ones who know how to calm their classmates down. Uh-huh. Whatever it is, we have to do this without assigning tasks, but by utilizing each student’s talents, abilities, and skills. Who knows, it might even define a future career. Definitely. It’s not close, Bru. How can teachers and schools work together to ensure real adaptation, like the teachers and schools we’re talking about, right? It’s through the PEI, the individualized teaching plan, the PDI, right? Through the PDI. No. PE I. PE I. Pi. Through the PEI, the school and teachers work together, because with the PEI, everyone participates in the development of this document. The teacher, in this case, will be the one with the pen. I say that when something is for everyone in a school, it doesn’t work. Have you ever seen that story about everyone, no one, that there was a task for everyone to do? But since everyone thought anyone would do it, no one did. No one did. Exactly. And then everyone gets angry. That’s it. So at school, there’s this whole everyone-is-her-own-thing. So there has to be someone with a pen in hand. The one with the pen is the teacher who will coordinate the writing. But everyone participates. So, at school, ah, if a student gets out of line in the playground, the cafeteria worker has to know how to act. If he gets out of line at the entrance, the doorman has to know how to act. He has to have read that protocol. He has to know, not just read it, but it has to be demonstrated. Yes, right? Because then, the example carries. It’s true, right? Because there are people who say, “Oh, but I sent it to everyone.” But sometimes Cantinel didn’t understand or didn’t even read it when he said, “No, then I have to say it, okay?” But he didn’t. True, definitely. It’s practical training. Oh, if that happens, you’ll end up like that. You know? It’s like a clinical professor when we’re examining a patient. Oh, you examine it like this, what do you have to do? Examine it so I can see it. Show me, show me nat. Because one thing is what you thought the other person understood. Exactly. Another thing is what the other person understood. In fact, this practice you’re talking about is one of the things professors ask for most. Because most teacher training focuses on theory, but doesn’t demonstrate what you have to do, not how you’re going to do it. And that’s what I said, guys, this is missing, I need this. I need this. That’s when I woke up and said, “No, I have to teach these teachers how to do it.” Look, I’m back to the online field again. You record a video, yes, showing how to do it, right? You do the learning theater there, then you move it to her corner. Oh, I get it. Video modeling. Which is very easy. Any cell phone can do it. Exactly. Any cell phone can do it, you know? So it’s still just sending the written text, but sending the video. For example, he said there, teachers need to adapt the activity, so he always says, “Hey, you have to adapt the activity, it’s your right.” How do you adapt activities? Since I have teachers who are from my course, I say, “Guys, let’s adapt a math activity together. Let’s take a case study, let’s imagine this activity is for this student. So we go step by step through how to fail, that’s because the theory is quite different, with different interpretations. When you do this and in practice say, “Wow, but how am I going to do this if I have 30 students in the classroom?” Then they think, “Wow, it must be really difficult.” And we show, guys, look, this is the how, I show step by step, it’s the how, but Verus, it’s like this. So in pay, it’s the adaptation of the activities that have to be visualized. Did you know that most schools nowadays don’t do pay? And all this is for both public and private schools? It’s for both public and private schools. And then all teachers have to prepare this document. But what happens? Since they don’t know how to do it, have you heard of control C, control V? It doesn’t work. Then the teacher gets frustrated because that document he copied, let’s say, had a teacher who said to me: “Hey, Verusica, I was having a lot of trouble doing my student’s checklist, the planning, my daughter, but I was lucky, thank God, an autistic student came into my colleague’s class, drink, I got hers, he’s autistic like my student, I got hers, I changed the name. I said: “Is it working?” She’s not, but I already did it. It’s done. I said, guys, but it’s not individualized. It doesn’t exist, it doesn’t exist. There may be things there that can be used, but it won’t be the same. It won’t be possible, it won’t be possible. And then with online learning, the parents will find out too, right? In 5 minutes they post in the WhatsApp group: “Look here at my son’s chest, the other one will say: “Hi, what kind of individualization is this that’s the same as mine? Who knows. I say that in 5 minutes of the parent’s training, one parent will be able to regulate the other, It’s not individualized, because one is at one level in math, the other is at another. One person’s talent isn’t the same as another’s. One person has more facility with one thing, the other with another. I have a small group of students where I have two students of the same age with autism. One can’t put together a puzzle. The one who can’t put together the puzzle does division. The one who puts together the puzzle isn’t literate. That’s what I’m saying. It’s not equal. Perhaps the autistic spectrum is the most heterogeneous thing that shows the extent of the complexity. It really is a spectrum. The extent of the complexity of functioning is quite different. No two autistic people are the same. There’s no way I can include the student without the PI. There’s no way. If there’s a student in the school and they have a special education target audience, they have a need, and without a PI, a real PI who will know who this student is, what they need to learn, how they will learn, and what I will use to help them learn. And it’s the monitoring of this, the resources, the strategies, what What works, what doesn’t work. Review. It needs to be updated. Updated. Everyone updates their cell phone every six months. How come they don’t update? It’s true. We update our cell phones, but we’re not going to update the student’s life, right? Educational life. Next, Bru. What have been the most significant changes in inclusion legislation in recent years, and how have schools kept up with these transformations? I think the most recent major advancement, which hasn’t yet… It’s a law, a guideline, the guidance that came from Opinion 50, which refers to the PE. Exactly. Revolutionary OP, the individualized development plan. It’s 50 years old in the United States, but it arrived here last year. Here it’s just a baby, a newborn. So I say, when a teacher says, “I don’t know how to do it, let’s learn.” You have to have compassion for this teacher, because you really have to teach them, and you have to give them the tools to learn. Yes. When I teach a teacher how to do the IP, what do I do? I do an immersion. An immersion that I do together. I do it online with them, I say, “I’m going to open my computer and we’re going to do it together. And then I’ll write along with them.” Why? It’s very easy for me to say, “Look, you have to do the PIL, you have to identify individual needs, do it together.” That’s what you were saying: do it together. Do it together. Yes. So, one of the major changes is that now, you know, guidance on the PEI has come online , which, for me, brings a huge step forward. Another important legislative issue for me is regulating the law related to support professionals. So, there’s a law that calls for support professionals, which is the LBI law, the Brazilian Inclusion Law, and the Berenice Piana Law, which addresses specialized companions. And since these two laws exist, it’s kind of like this: some schools have specialized companions, and some schools mostly have support professionals because they’re cheaper financially, in the sense that I can hire someone with a high school diploma. So, I just graduated from high school, I’m there, you know, I know nothing about anything. And then a position for a support professional came up, and I can apply for it . Of course, the salary is very low, but they have no training whatsoever. So I think there needs to be significant progress in training this support professional who will be in the classroom, because it’s also bad for the professional themselves if they suffer, because most don’t have one. And most of the students who have the right to a support professional are the most severe students who will sometimes exhibit those self-harm behaviors, much more trained. Much more trained. He’s almost like a BOP, a crisis intervention . It’s about preventing, preventing it from happening. Exactly. Exactly. He has to be very well trained. And then I received a message this week from the teacher telling me about the situation she has in the classroom: a student going into crisis and it’s very difficult, that she has more than 20 students per class and she also has other students with other disabilities. So I replied to her: “Look, this student needs a support professional.” You know what she told me? He has one, but he doesn’t know anything. So I have to work harder with him than without him, because I have to teach him how to work. Exactly. I said, “Wow, it’s difficult.” This is something that needs to improve. Yes, there needs to be regulations, implementation of the PE and regulations. Did you know there are? Did you know there are, for example, the state of Minas Gerais, which doesn’t hire tutors or support professionals; it hires a teacher, a support teacher. And as a support teacher, they still have to have training in special education. I say it’s the dream. It’s definitely the dream. So Minas Gerais is ahead in this aspect, in this sense, okay? But I don’t know how long it will last, how long they will be able to sustain this financially, because it involves many issues and there are many situations like this that are, I think, wonderful, challenges. Challenges that are challenges. It’s close, Bru. How can the family collaborate with the school without falling into conflict or excessive demands? When parents arrive at schools, I understand that many parents arrive there with a history of frustration, rejection, and even suffering. I understand suffering because it’s very distressing for a family. So, it’s very common for parents to arrive there with their foot in the door, wondering where my child’s foot is? Where are the adapted activities? And they think: “The teacher is paid for this, he has to know how to do it. The law is like this, he is paid and he has to know how to do it, but in practice, was this teacher trained for this? No, this teacher received a subsidy so he could be there in this role. So, these parents came to the teachers and said: “Look, how can I help you? What can I do to help you? Well, understand when they say, “Look, it’s difficult, he’s not, I see he’s not having adapted activities.” Why aren’t you adapting? And don’t say, “You’re not doing it?” Yeah, why aren’t you doing it? How can I help you with this work? So it’s empathy. I think there needs to be empathy on both sides. On both sides. So, everyone is suffering. Yes, I see parents, I have parents who are wonderful, who participate, who come together, but there are parents who are very complicated, we’re even afraid to help the student. There was even a specific situation that happened, a mother because she has an autistic son, so there are specific cases, right? No, my son is autistic now, so he starts to have millions of rights above even other children. My son is autistic. Then he arrived at school, went to enroll him in school, the teacher, the moment the boy entered the room, he started crying. Then the mother said: “He didn’t like this teacher. First day of school. He didn’t like this teacher. I want him to change her because my son is autistic, he has the right. Go to the principal, change the boy, put him in the other room. The boy doesn’t want to go into the room, so the support professional leaves and goes with him to the playground, but the backpack entered the room and the teacher was inside the classroom, at a time when the children were not in the room, but the backpack was there and inside the backpack was a recorder. And then the teacher talking that she didn’t even meet this student, didn’t even know this child, but knew that the mother was a difficult mother. Uh-huh. And she, afraid of this difficult mother, comes and says: “Oh, talking to a colleague, you know, at that informal time? Oh, he might not like me either. Who knows, she might even take him out of school.” Oh, my God. She got this recording and was trying to sign a written notice to remove the teacher. She didn’t remove the teacher because the teacher was wonderful and the parents didn’t want to sign it. But the situation became so unsustainable that this teacher had to be transferred to another school. And what’s this teacher going to develop? Burnout. Very likely. Very likely, because she was in shock. The school was very close to her house, she walked. Now she’s gone to a school far away. I get it. It changed her life. So you need to have this empathy with teachers, because it’s not easy being a teacher, no. And a lot of things are being blamed on the teachers. The student having a meltdown is because the teacher let him have a meltdown. Guys, autistic students having a meltdown, yes, it will happen. I will, I will do my best to avoid it, but they will happen. So let’s, you know, understand. Oh, it’s not because it’s your fault. Sometimes the parent says, “He doesn’t have meltdowns at my house, he’s a sweetheart at home.” It’s impossible. So what do I ask? When parents start talking like this, I advise teachers to ask the following question: Does he have to sit at his desk at your house ? At home, does he get in line for lunch and only get lunch on time? At home, he has to do his homework, he has to ask to leave the room. At home, he can keep his cell phone, he can sit in front of the television, he’s not frustrated, right, at any time. Well, here at school, there’s no television, no cell phones, and there are rules. So, where will he have a crisis? At school. But life out there will have many rules, right? So, but if she doesn’t prepare now, because school will pass. School is a period. Exactly. And after that, life doesn’t. This continues, that’s perfect. Next, Bru. What’s the biggest myth about school inclusion that you’d like to debunk? The biggest myth I see is that many people think, sometimes even some teachers may think, that because they have a disability… They won’t learn. And if they start from the mindset that they won’t learn, that mindset will generate behavior, right? And with that behavior, I might not make the necessary adjustments because they won’t learn. So I’ll let time pass, and if they’re a student who doesn’t require much work, they’ll remain invisible in the classroom, and they can learn. Of course, each one within their potential. So let’s imagine an 11-year-old child who comes to speak. In this case, my student, who was 8 years old, came to speak a word to me for the first time. I’ll celebrate like never before, because it was a huge development. Maybe for the other one, he was able to speak at 8 months. I understand. The other one took 8 years to speak, but he learned. So, these are the strategies I’ll be using, the resources I’ll be using, and I’ll believe there’s potential. But I’ll only know what that potential is by developing a plan for them, which is the Pay. If I develop the PE, I’ll know what the potential is. If not, I’ll determine whether it will work or not. Whether it will work or not. But I can’t predict this with prejudice, determine that no, no, I can’t do that, because then I’m making that diagnosis there, look, a determinant, a tattoo, right? That diagnosis there is over, received, and will not be. And as a teacher, I have to see beyond. I have to see what they know, based on what they know, what they can know one step ahead. Exactly. Because sometimes one thing they learn completely changes their quality of life, their family’s, everyone’s. It changes everything. And I have to believe they can learn. So, if the teacher can believe in this and develop their mind, develop their mind, look at it, observe, practice, and see this student as a human being just like me, and they will learn through me, along with the entire school, but through me, it will pass into my hands, I will help them, I will do my part. Very well done, without improvisation, because improvisation hurts. That’s why evidence-based practices are important. They will be. I’m not going to fumble around in the dark. Will it work or not? I’ll go with what’s evidence-based. Perfect. Next, Bru. What to do when the school refuses to adapt the curriculum for students with special needs? This can happen when the school is truly unprepared. These days, we’ve seen fewer of these cases, but there are still some schools that may not have evolved. In this case, let’s assume the family is there requesting adaptations and the school isn’t doing it. There’s no point going to the school and talking verbally. You have to register, you have to register. Hey, let’s have a meeting here and we’ll define it here. So, at the meeting, he said: “Look, adaptations are needed.” And the school? No, we’re not going to adapt. So, write that down. Uh-huh. And if necessary, take legal action. Uh-huh. Because verbally alone won’t work. If not, if you’re refusing, verbally alone won’t work. Just stay there, right? No, and leaving this child in a school with this attitude, I don’t know if it’s valid. I don’t even know if it’s worth it, if it’s worth taking legal action on something that will cause even greater suffering. Uh-huh. Maybe there are things where sometimes it’s not about going to court, it’s about choosing another option based on common sense. Yes, I’ve seen mothers who said, they had three schools, the smallest one, I don’t know who opened the door for me, I went there. For example, because the others were beautiful and full of programs. You know? But they shut me out. Do you know that the public school system is more inclusive than the private school system? It’s easier, and the teachers are better trained in the public school system. Yes, oddly enough. Yes. I think private schools, they have to open up to this and train their teachers, because… But most don’t want to. It’s because it’s too expensive for private schools. And the private school wants the student who will appear on the billboard who passed the Enem (National High School Exam) for the first time. But I think that school will come a time when the school that makes a difference, the school that transforms nonverbal into verbal will also get ratings, I think. I hope so. I think so. I’m dreaming of that day. Because this, this, is what I said, is an Oscar. It’s a different one, but it’s a perspective. I hope so, right? We have to believe. We have to believe. I ‘m an education enthusiast, I actually believe, right? Next, Bru. How do we encourage student autonomy without leaving them unprotected? Great question. It’s about doing it with them, not for them. Perfect. Generally, the students who need this development of autonomy are those who will have a companion. And then I say to that training companion, I say: “You know who the best support professional is? It’s the one who at the end of the year the student doesn’t need . At the end of the year, wow, he almost doesn’t need me anymore, because before he wouldn’t go to the bathroom, now he does. I had to feed him, he eats on his own. He comes into the room, cleans, washes his hands, fills his dishes because I helped him develop autonomy. So everything he can do, you let him do, and what he doesn’t know how to do, you do with him. Then he says: “Oh, but I’m going to lose my job.” I said: “Nobody wants to lose a professional like that. These are the best.” So you want to know which one is best? It’s the one where the student at the end of the year is already advancing in what they were totally dependent on, or they became partially dependent on, or they became independent. This is a thought, “I’m going to lose my job” is so wrong, because this person, this support professional who promotes this, can train so many others, can form a private chain of this that so many people have money and no one to pay for. True. It’s unbelievable. So, when we think that like, “I’m not going to do it right because I’m going to lose my job,” we’re failing to see the sea of opportunities that the person can’t even imagine. And there are so many people in need. Yes. Now, can you believe that there are mothers who want this dependence in school? I believe it. Who want this dependence, who say: “No, it’s not for you to do. You have people there to do it for you.” What are you going to do that for? Okay. In her mind, it’s love. She’s showing love in that way with super protection. But it is, but mothers have to think that one day they won’t be there, won’t be there. So it’s necessary to prepare this child for the day they’re not here and prepare as much as possible. I have a patient who has a son, Teia, who started at a grade three, today he’s a grade two to one. Yeah, a lot of training, the family worked very hard, they had the means, they have the means. And today they’re already preparing, they already know who will take care of him, he’s already in his early 40s, almost 50. Yeah, they already know everything on paper and today they’re preparing him to wash his clothes, dry his clothes so that when he has to live with his brother who’s going, it’s been determined, he can no longer have lunch or dinner shirtless, because his brother has children, look, behave at the table, he knows today how to turn on the machine, put it in the wash, put it in the dryer, and then he only buys clothes made of fabric that don’t need ironing. So So, this is so beautiful because it’s the love that remains. It structured the routine. I love for myself. I love for him beyond myself. For life. Exactly. I had a little student who refused to go to the bathroom. It’s very common. It’s very, very, very common. And not going to the bathroom. I said, “But how do you do it?” She said, “Oh, I leave him in the backyard.” He’s naked and he walks around the backyard. I said, “And when are you thinking of changing that?” She said, “Oh, he has autism, like, I’m tired.” Then I showed her, I said, “You’re a tall woman, I think your boy will be tall.” Can you imagine him at 18, 20 years old in the backyard doing this? Every day you ‘ll get a call from the police. Exactly. Every day they’ll call the police, there’s a naked man like that, roasted in the backyard. She said, “Wow, how horrible.” I said, “But that’s it, he’ll grow up, you have to think about it. ” that he will grow up.” She was shocked, preparing him for this, preparing him for life, for the future, right? Perfect. Next, Bru. How to deal with parents who refuse to accept the diagnosis? There are many parents who refuse to accept it. And then I say again that it’s a question of understanding and welcoming this parent and giving him time. Sometimes he will need that time. It’s How can we accelerate the grief of our child? No. So we have to give it time. Let it go and show them that they just have to focus on not missing the window of opportunity. Focus on not missing it. Because this is what I always say: the patient will always choose. Parents are always on top, no doubt about it, but it’s important that we explain all the possibilities. At this point, we have to implement all these strategies. Exactly. Exactly. It’s like a child who has a very strong genetic predisposition for obesity and then begins to gain a lot of weight in childhood. We have to say: “Look, it’s genetic, he’s forming fat cells that won’t come back, won’t come back, they’ll fill up. Okay, okay, okay. Ah, but everyone at home is like that, how about everyone getting better, right? So I’m saying this, I hope he’s very healthy, but if you can determine today whether your child will be obese or not, it would be in your hands. And I’ve seen this change entire families : fathers start exercising with their children and soon they’re running a marathon. Incredible things can happen when we give them correct, supportive information. You have this option, but every decision you make, you are the father, you are the mother, and you have this right. I always talk to parents when they’re having this difficulty, sometimes I say: “Watch this podcast here and watch a movie, a movie.” There’s no point in blaming. There’s no point in fighting, no. We have to go, he’s already suffering. I’ll put more weight on this. But then when you say that the quality of His life, his change, his son’s. Uh-huh. And his longevity, I think anyone who has a neuroatypical child worries a lot, right? It’s what will happen in the future. So, when you take care of yourself so you can last longer and help your child, you’ll set an example of health for that child too. There was a mother who came to me and said, “Oh, I got my son diagnosed with autism, and then they told me he’s not going to amount to anything, he’s not going to get married, he’s not going to work, he’s this, he’s that.” And I met her son. Then I said, “Let’s look at it from another perspective. Look how much your son is developing. And another thing, if we start working with him now, we’ll prove that this won’t be a reality in his life. So, we’re racing against time. There’s hope, we’re working towards it.” She came out and said: “Wow, my heart is actually light, because I was feeling so devastated that when someone says that, they stamp it with hopelessness. I don’t think anyone can stamp hopelessness, take away a dream, right? Yeah, it doesn’t exist, it doesn’t exist. If you can’t help, don’t get in the way, because taking away hopelessness, I think it’s cruel. I’ve never been able to do that in my life, never, in the most difficult situations, because I don’t think I can be a spokesperson for the trumpets of the apocalypse. Isn’t that right? It really is. The trumpet of the apocalypse has ended. Yeah, we have what we have to do, we have. It’s difficult, it’s difficult, but let’s go, let’s make the most of what we can, right? Next, Bru. Hmm. We’ve reached the pipinho moment, or here it’s a ping-pong or a pickle ball, which is tennis played on a tiny court that’s like ping-pong. So There’s nothing serious here . It’s whatever comes to mind, you answer, okay? No, it doesn’t even have to be coherent. So let’s go. First, what’s the word that defines you? A word that defines you: light. Lightness. That’s what everyone says to me. You, light. What a good thing. Two. Overcoming. Mother. Three. Family. Mine. Of all. Four. Complete the sentence: educating with love is teaching as a student needs to learn. Five. If the world ended tomorrow, what would you do today? A, I would live as much as I could. I would say I love you, hug, kiss. Some crazy food that you don’t eat because it’s bad for you, that you would eat. I think I would want a pizza. That’s great. Six. A happy memory. Me playing in the backyard with my sisters. That’s cool. It’s really nice. I played a lot with my younger sister, Ingrid. We played a lot. She ‘s here. Ingrid is here. I remember. Remember one day we were playing in the backyard and there was one There was a board under construction, there was a board with a nail in it. And then she looked down and fell, and it was high, but a bent nail caught her shorts, and the shorts went down to her knees. I was a kid, I didn’t know I was at risk, right? So I went down there, grabbed a towel, and my other sister, Kivia, and I grabbed the towel and said, “Come on, jump, jump.” And she was hanging upside down by a nail, a nail that caught her shorts. Come on, trust us. When my mom looks, my mom only sees her little legs. She must have been about four years old. Only sees her little legs. My God, my almost-mother saved me. You could have had a CT trauma. But I was there like, “No. Yes. You did it right. You just forgot she was hanging. Poor thing. Come on. Come on, we’ll hold you. Hold on. Oh, very good. Hey, if you had a superpower, what would it be? Could you choose a superpower? Oh, it would be the power to influence people. Influence or inspire, because these days there are people who claim to influence everything, right? But some things aren’t so good. Influencers, I’m a bit dubious. Exactly. Inspire. Inspire people. Perfect, you already do that. Eight. An essential habit. Sleep. Nine, happiness. Travel. I love it. And 10. A phrase or thought you’d like to leave behind. It could be yours, it could be anyone else’s. I’d like to leave you with this phrase: “I decided to care. And you? Did you decide to care? To care when no one believes, to care when everyone thinks it won’t work. To care when someone says they won’t learn, but you care and you go out there and make it happen. Because inclusion isn’t just about dreaming, it’s not just about having love, it has to have practice, it has to have study, because we don’t work improvising. So I decide to care and to care knowing exactly what I need to work on. Perfect, my dear, thank you so much. It was a pleasure to welcome you. You look exactly like you do on Instagram. Exactly the same, exactly the same, no take-aways, because some people look one thing, but are another. No, you are the real thing. Thank you very, very much. Now I’m going to give you some gifts. Let’s see if you’re going to leave here feeling carried away today. Oh, how wonderful. Put everything aside. Let the children test you by thinking about who you are for, who will you be? Restless minds. I’ve been reading restless minds. Bullying. Okay, this needs to be updated in in schools. Happiness, which was a book I’ve autographed, okay? Definitely. You think I’m joking, I work, I get here much earlier, I research your life, I saw your talk yesterday. Hey, and this one I wrote during the pandemic, I was stuck at home writing happiness. And this one was released at the end of last year, which is a proposal for 10 minutes of daily mental self-care. They are my phrases that you can open each day, okay? And that day you see any phrase there, you can open it or you can open it randomly. And underneath there’s a little something for you to make your notes, so you can give your interpretation, a record, okay? But it’s not over, okay? So let’s continue here. This is an eco-bag of our pipinho, of piple powder, right? of our cute mascot that only had good content with our motto: “Do, happen and inspire.” How beautiful what you’ve done already, because we care here. We care. It’s true. Here’s a notebook for you to be able to Post your projects, your things, because we love this writing thing. And a mug of kite powder so that when you drink your coffee or tea, you can remember us from this moment of great affection. You can put everything there and the children will arrange it for you. You’ll leave here all tidy. Now the time has come for you to look at that camera. You don’t need to look at me. For that camera to now carry the little microphone with you and give all your messages. I would really like to thank you for participating in this incredible moment. I feel very honored to be able to talk about something I love, which is talking about my profession, being a teacher. I love my mission to help teachers quickly and practically so that students with disabilities can learn regardless of their diagnosis. And I felt very honored to be invited here. Dr. Ana Beatriz is a lovely person and made me feel very comfortable. And if you’d like to learn more about my work, you can find me on social media, on my Instagram, @veruscadepaulasouza, Verusca with a k, souza with a z. And the link in my bio also has the teacher training courses I offer. Something we’ve talked about a lot here today is that teachers need to train themselves, prepare themselves to develop both their students and their own work, and feel good about the work they do. So, I offer courses focused on adapting activities, courses focused on the PEI, where I teach teachers how to develop the PAY program in practice, not telling them how to do it, but not telling them what to do, but also telling them how. So, I teach teachers how to do the PAY program with me, as well as literacy courses for students with disabilities and reporting courses. Feel free to check out my work, and thank you so much for being with me so far. Thank you so much, dear. Dear ones, we’re finishing another episode of Pip. Today it was with the lovely Verusca de Paula. If you don’t know her, I suggest you start following her now on Instagram @verusca KDPula Souza. Souza with a Z. If you wanted to know if inclusion works, doesn’t work, how it works, why it’s so complicated for us to provide quality education for people with disabilities, you’ll begin to understand everything, but understand how it should be done and how it needs to be done. If you have someone, a child, a relative who has learning disabilities, follow, don’t unfollow. If you liked this topic, share it, subscribe to the channel, and share it with as many people as possible so they can truly learn. Because here in the Pip community, we believe that knowledge, self-knowledge, and practicing the things we know can make us better human beings. Thank you very much, and until next time. Pod people. M.