Abstract

LIMA, Maria Alice Moreira. Learning difficulties and psychiatric science: a critical reading. Estilos clin. [online]. 2015, vol.20, n.3, pp. 441-458. ISSN 1415-7128.  http://dx.doi.org/10.11606/issn.1981-1624.v20i3p441-458.

This article presents a critical examination of the ways in which learning difficulties were addressed by the psychiatric science when they emerged as a major social problem. Despite the influence of the various theories about children and their development produced in the first half of the 20th century, this article identifies a predominance of the functionalist approach to the identification of the learning disability, a tendency evident in the search for an organic causality or the regarding of a "psychic causality" as an attempt to justify the learning disability. In both situations is evident the silencing of children, who are treated as mere subjects of several scientific speculations.

Keywords : learning difficulties; psychiatric science; children.

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