Through the fingers: Use of plastinated anatomical specimens for visually impaired students.

The plastination technique produces non-toxic human tissues, ensuring their safe handling in educational settings. This investigation aimed to understand if visually impaired students profit from the use of plastinated anatomical specimens in learning the anatomy of the nervous system. For this purpose, their learning performance was compared to sighted and blindfolded students recruited from three primary schools in Fortaleza city, in the state of Ceará. Initially, a questionnaire was applied before carrying out the pedagogical practice, followed by an anatomy lecture with practical components with the use of plastinated anatomical specimens and synthetic anatomical models of the nervous system. After these steps, the students answered the questionnaire previously applied. Our results showed that the tactile perception of the visually impaired participants was significantly more developed compared to sighted (p < 0.001) and the blindfolded (p < 0.0001) students. The average of correct answers in the reapplied questionnaire was higher in the groups that used plastinated specimens (p < 0.05). In conclusion, the use of plastinated specimens has proven to be an effective tool in promoting a better understanding of anatomical structures, mainly for students with or without visual impairments, making it a valuable asset in anatomy teaching.

Teaching human anatomy to the visually impaired: A systematic review.

Information related to human anatomy is present throughout the educational process, especially in undergraduate courses in the biomedical area. These courses have complex theoretical and practical contents, and this becomes more evident when they are developed for the visually impaired. The objective of this work was to perform a systematic review on the teaching of human anatomy for the visually impaired. After the protocol was registered on the PROSPERO platform (CRD42022306002), 10 electronic databases were manually searched with the descriptors "teaching human anatomy" and "visually impaired." Intervention studies were selected without date or language restrictions. In the end, only eight studies were found. Tactile materials produced manually, and Braille and cadaveric pieces, are assessed as good tools for teaching human anatomy to the visually impaired. There is a pressing need for adaptations of teaching methods to make the teaching more accessible and inclusive.