Essential Elements for the Appropriation of Chemistry's Language Games by Students with Visual Impairment

Abstract

This article investigates the appropriation of chemical language by students with visual impairment through the manipulation of tactile ball-and-stick models. The research was conducted with students from the Jequiense Association of the Blind (AJECE) and adopts Grounded Theory as its methodology. Chemistry education is traditionally based on visual aspects, which poses challenges for the learning process of these students. The analysis of the teaching sequence identified essential elements involved in the acquisition of chemical language, referring to the notion of chemical judgments present in the history and philosophy of chemistry, such as: mereology, which explains part-whole relationships inherent in chemical science and in the tactile perception of those without vision; the concept of affordance, which addresses the possibilities for student interaction with tactile models and how these objects contribute to interpreting chemical content; and the concept of proxemics, which facilitates both teacher mediation and student participation. These concepts are articulated with Wittgenstein's Theory of Language Games, according to which understanding a language means participating in its specific practices. Thus, teaching chemistry to students with visual impairment means enabling their insertion into the language game of chemistry, where learning occurs through the use and experience of scientific language in meaningful contexts.