2020 Volume 55 Issue 4 Pages 203-210
Often intellectually disabled persons cannot engage in agriculture work because farming is a complex process composed of a combination of simple tasks. This study assesses whether a conventional farming method can be universalized by decomposing the tasks in each complex process into elementary ones. As a method, each process in the cultivation of Yamato Mana, a traditional leafy vegetable in the Nara prefecture, is performed by decomposing it into a process that can be executed by one operation or repetition, which is called elementary process decomposition in this paper. The germination number and harvest are compared with those from the conventional method. In addition, the data describing the state of each work process by high school students at Nara-nishi Special Needs School for Intellectual Disabilities are analyzed. Both the number of germinated seeds and the harvest in terms of weight and spread of foliage are significantly larger at 0.1, 0.1, and 1% level respectively in the cultivation via elementary process decomposition than those in the conventional method. Analysis reveals three findings. Elementary process decomposition and the use of assistance tools make it easier to understand the work content of each process. Repetition improves work accuracy. Sharing roles in the work process is easier for students. Consequently, elementary process decomposition increases the number of tasks that students with intellectual disability can do independently compared to the conventional method.
