Percepción de los padres de niños con síndrome de Down de 5 a 11 años respecto a las prácticas sobreprotectoras y las dimensiones de la autonomía de la Unidad Educativa Especial ADINEA en la ciudad de Cuenca durante el periodo marzo – agosto 2022

Abstract

The evolutionary development of children with Down syndrome during the first years of life is a great challenge for parents, since it depends mostly on them that children acquire habits to solve the activities of daily life to finally become autonomous people, however, overprotection limits this autonomy from being fully acquired, affecting the child to explore and interact with their social environment and generates dependency of children towards their parents The objective of this research is to describe the perceptions of parents of children with Down syndrome regarding overprotection and autonomy. The study responds to a qualitative approach, with a phenomenological design and descriptive scope, the participants were parents of children with Down syndrome from 5 to 11 years of the ADINEA Special Educational Unit located in the city of Cuenca, semi-structured interviews were conducted 8 parents and a focus group made up of 4 participants. In conclusion, the perception of overprotection and autonomy that parents have is built from the experiences and knowledge of each one of them. They describe autonomy as the main factor in the development of their children to overcome individual weaknesses and achieve a better development in their lives, however, they manifest the lack of knowledge between protection and overprotection, which becomes an obstacle in the process of learning autonomic skills.