Banca de DEFESA: DANIELA DOS SANTOS AMÉRICO

 WHAT CAN I LEARN FROM CHILDREN'S FABLES? A Study of Mothers and Children on Social Skills

Fables. Reading. Cognitive Development. Social skills.

The practice of reading is related to a series of benefits for child development: stimulating creativity, associating playful figures with real situations, understanding social norms and encouraging logical thinking. It is known that social skills favor social interactions, in addition to contributing to cognitive development. In this context, the research aimed to understand the social skills of children who explore fables as a reading activity. For this, it was intended: a) To know the existence of contents about social skills in fables and how these are represented by the characters and situations described; b) Assess children's social skills before and after reading fables; c) Assess the frequency of the child's skillful behaviors from the perspective of the parents; d) Knowing how parents assess their children's behavior problems; Ten (10) children aged between 9 and 11 years old and their mothers, who accompanied them in the educational process during the pandemic period, participated in this research. From an analysis by judges, carried out by members of the Laboratory of Education and Social Skills - LEHS, 20 fables contained in the 'Conta pra Mim' program were analyzed and from these seven (7) fables were selected. Each one contained in its narrative subclasses referring to each child's social skill. For data collection, the Social Skills Assessment System Inventory (SSRS-BR) was applied to children and mothers, which includes measures of problematic behavior and academic competence of children. In children, the SSRS/children was applied before exposure to fables and after this activity, and it was found that after reading the fables there was an improvement of 74.22% in the children's self-concept about their social skills. The SSRS/fathers inventory provided mothers with the possibility of evaluating their children's social skills repertoire according to their perspective, the results suggested that the children had a social skills repertoire considered average regular, that is, indicating results within the average for most items. However, possible behavior problems were also evaluated and, according to the mothers' evaluation, the children were classified with a regular average repertoire, which is indicative of behavior problems in the general average in most of the items and indicates the need for skills training social. It is concluded that the fables have characteristics in the narrative that describe skillful behavior and the application of the SSRS/BR inventory showed that after a week of reading the fables, the children's self-concept showed much more positive results. The need for research on the social skills arising from this transmission lies in instigating that fables could function as a tool for learning social skills in educational institutions in the region, thus contributing to better child development.