Abstract:

The present article aims to analyse the role of the emotions in the autistic´s mother and father´s activism of autistic in Brazil in the 1980s. From the triangulations of different documentary sources (autobiographies, academic books of the period and articles published in journals) we mapped out the more common emoticons expressed with their children, with emphasis on unhappiness and love. We observed that emoticons enabled a critical analysis of reality, the establishment of bonds of solidarity and the constructions of first measures that enabled the acknowledgment the rights of autistics in Brazil.

Keywords:
Emotions; Activism; Autism; 1980s