From Integration to Inclusion: Legal and Theoretical Foundations for the Inclusion of Students With Autism Spectrum Disorder in School Physical Education
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This article examines the legal and theoretical foundations that support the inclusion of students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in school Physical Education classes. It starts from the observation that enrollment alone does not guarantee participation, and that part of the Brazilian literature on the subject treats integration and inclusion as synonyms, when in fact they designate distinct pedagogical relationships with the student with a disability. This is a qualitative, bibliographic and documentary study, organized as a narrative review, with a search conducted on the Capes Journal Portal, supplemented by direct searches in open-access repositories and institutional portals. The article covers three axes: the Brazilian regulatory framework, from the 1988 Federal Constitution to the 2025 updates on the School Support Professional; the conceptual difference between integration and inclusion, based on Mantoan (2015) and Sassaki (2010); and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as a paradigm that shifts pedagogical planning from a reactive logic to an anticipatory one. The results indicate that the heterogeneity of the autism spectrum invalidates any standardized pedagogical response. The legal framework itself, by defining disability as the interaction between impairment and barrier, already points in that direction, but school Physical Education still needs to translate that principle into everyday practice, with more studies focused on the topic. It is concluded that the right to inclusive Physical Education is normatively guaranteed, but its realization depends on concrete pedagogical decisions and on the training of the agents involved in it, not a passive reading of the law.
Source: Artefactum
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7216521623