Impactos de um programa de Mindfuness no desenvolvimento das funções executivas, atenção e habilidades socioemocionais na primeira infância

Abstract

Early childhood is a fundamental stage in the subject's life. It is in this period of life that the biggest changes in the process of physical, cognitive and socio-affective development occur. Considering the importance of this stage, we emphasize that it is essential to invest in practices in early childhood education that favor the development and improvement of the various skills of the human being. In this sense, this research focused on presenting and discussing a Mindfulness-based intervention proposal using an adapted protocol called: A mindfulness-based kindness curriculum for preschoolers. This research was conducted with five-year-old children. Thus, the overall objective of this paper was to analyze the impacts of a Mindfulness program on the development of executive functions, attention and socio-emotional skills in five-year-olds. Regarding the methodology of this research, an open questionnaire was applied to teachers working in early childhood education, and a study of five cases (five-year-old children) was also conducted. For the analysis of these cases, three psychometric tasks were applied before and after the children's participation in a protocol based on Mindfulness practice. The research was conducted in a Municipal Center of Early Childhood Education - CEMEI, located in the city of Recife - PE. Data were evaluated using the descriptive analysis technique. The results showed that there are still teachers who do not know or know little about the concepts of Mindfulness, have different conceptions about executive functions, attention and socioemotional skills. Regarding psychometric tasks, it was noticed that there were few variations in the results of these tasks. Regarding socio-emotional skills, through hetero-evaluation (interview with the teacher of students who participated in the intervention) it was possible to perceive positive impacts on children after the intervention (socialization, participation in classroom activities). In short, it was found that the protocol provided beneficial effects on students.