Investigação-ação com mães de pessoas com deficiência intelectual: a redução da sobrecarga como um projeto de vida

The article aims to report action research conducted with groups of mothers of people with intellectual disabilities, aiming to contribute to the improvement in the quality of life and the re - signification of their life projects. The action research was fulfilled with two groups, and in one of them 24 meetings were held during eight months, and in the other, 12 meetings were held during four months. All the meetings were recorded through systematic observations. An analysis of content and main group phenomena, as well as evaluation of perception of change, after completion of the experiment was also developed. At the beginning of the research, there was resistance on the part of the mothers in relation to the project of life as a consequence of little some difficulties in relation to the capacity their children.That is, it was observed that the mothers offered little possibilities for their children to develop  autonomy and independence for activities of the daily life, causing them to be overloaded while caregivers. Thus, the focus of the action research was to discuss concrete activities that could generate autonomy, considering the limits and possibilities of the children and questions related to the subjective experiences of the mothers, taking as a trigger the Inventory of Independent Living Skills. It was found that the reflection on the daily activities of the children, on ways of stimulation for greater independence and on strategies that could be used for the child to develop certain behavior, besides reducing the overload, is a life project for mothers.