The present study was conducted to examine the relationship between spatial cognition and manipulative ability in spatial image in children who are congenitally blind. The subjects (N=8) were asked to perform spatial perspective-taking (PT) tasks and mental rotation (MR) tasks. The stimuli were A4-sized images with one to four items illustrated by convex surfaces, and the target angles were 90°, 180°, and 270°. The subjects were divided into two groups: one with children who could perform accurate spatial movement in reference frame of a familiar room (Group A) and one with children who could not perform the task properly (Group B). The results show Group A performed better in PT tasks compared to Group B although there was no significant difference between the groups in MR tasks. Group A had better results in PT tasks than MR tasks; moreover, the number of incorrect responses in MR tasks increased when the rotating angle was increased. In Group B, there was no significant difference between PT tasks and MR tasks, and the influence of rotating angle was not observed. It was suggested that Group A performed well in PT tasks, and Group B may have had difficulty in performing both tasks.

Inattention is strongly associated with poor planning and low working memory capacity. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between inattention score, behavioral performance during problem solving tasks, and prefrontal cortex activity in typical developing adults. The mastermind game was used as the problem solving task. For the investigation of brain activities, cerebral blood flow in the prefrontal cortex area was measured using near-infrared spectroscopy during the mastermind game. In terms of behavioral performance, longer completion times and lower accuracy were observed in the high-inattention score group compared with the low-inattention score group on 4 pin conditions where the difficulty level was highest. The hemodynamic changes in oxyhemoglobin (oxy-Hb) in the low-inattention score group were similar regardless of difficulty level in all analyzed areas. This indicated that the entire fronto-parietal network may be related to problem solving processes. In the high-inattention group, the hemodynamic changes in oxy-Hb decreased on 4 pin conditions where high-working memory was utilized. These results suggest that the tendency for high inattention influences the working memory process and medial PFC activities related to working memory.

Car drivers and pedestrians collect information proactively by activating their attentional functions in road traffic. Road traffic accidents and traffic violations were mainly caused by attentional dysfunctions. Especially, adult ADHD and healthy elderly might induce attention dysfunction. Their characteristics of attention dysfunction while driving and walking, are not completely clarified yet. In this study, a scale of attentional function by the normal adult persons (N=208) aged from 30th to 50th was to be developed as a convenient tool for solving the characteristics of attentional dysfunction. As the result, (1) this scale have four factors of “Attentional dysregulation”, “Shifting attentional functions”, “Decline in arousal levels”, and “attention destruction”, (2) getting confidential Cronbach’s alpha coefficient from each scale, (3) getting the reliable coexisted validity with total point of the items of ADHD in DSM-5 by showing the theoretical correlation. It is concluded that above results confirmed the reliability and validity of this scale.

Using the delayed auditory feedback (DAF) condition, in which one hears his/her own speech with a delay of a few hundred milliseconds, some stutterers show improvement in their stuttering symptoms. However, the underlying mechanisms of the effect of DAF on stutterers and the reported interindividual variabilities have not been clarified. To examine the relationship between DAF effect and brain activity, we used near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) on 11 stutterers to record their brain activity under normal auditory feedback (NAF) and DAF conditions. The DAF induced a more pronounced increase in oxygenated hemoglobin in the left precentral and left inferior frontal gyri compared with the NAF. We next divided the stutterers into two groups based on their behavioral indicators after DAF, seven stutterers whose disfluency had worsened and four whose disfluency had improved, and explored their brain activity. The results revealed elevated brain activity in the right superior temporal gyrus in those with worsened stuttering, while those with improved stuttering displayed an increase in the activity proximity of the left superior temporal and left precentral gyri. These findings suggest that stutterers may comprise distinct subgroups that present different characteristics of their auditory information processing system.

This study reviewed School-Wide Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (SWPBIS) effectiveness studies and investigative studies on SWPBIS sustainability factors published between 2010 and 2016 in the United States. Among the 20 effectiveness studies, some were conducted in high schools or alternative schools, some involved many participants and most studies used specific methods to evaluate the integrity and effectiveness of SWPBIS implementation. School team actions and administrators supports were analyzed in some of the sustainability factors investigative studies. These analyses suggest that there is a need to conduct SWPBIS effectiveness studies in various schools, develop methods to measure the integrity and effectiveness of SWPBIS implementation, and create an environment that promotes SWPBIS implementation in Japan.

This paper examined the process and the reasons behind the closure of special schools for the blind in England in the 1980s. While schools were already facing financial difficulties due to the decreasing number of students, the implementation of the 1981 Education Act encouraged the Local Education Authorities to shift towards building their own local provisions rather than sending children with visual impairment to a non-maintained special school. In this situation, school for the blind, which had a clear view on how “healthy schools” should look like, decides to close the school. Behind the closure of special schools for the blind, there were external factors such as the overall decrease in the number of children and the implementation of the 1981 Education Act, but also, internal factors such as the school’s own belief.

The purpose of this study was to examine the introduction process of “Dohsa-kunren” in Kirigaoka school for the physically challenged, Tokyo university of Education by analyzing bulletin of Kirigaoka. At Kirigaoka, there was the question among some teachers that “Kinou-kunren”, which was placed in course of study published in 1963, was mainly consisted of medical training and was not suited as educational instruction. So, “Dohsa-kunren”, which is psychotherapeutic approach to improve volitional motor actions proposed by Naruse, was started as the part of “Kinou-kunren” from the point of learning motor action. In Kirigaoka, “Dohsa-kunren” was considered as effective method of “Kinou-kunren” as results of some practical research and basic research. After formation of “Yogokunren”, which was placed in course of study published in 1971 and required to instruct from the point of general development, “Dohsa-kunren”, which was mainly aimed to improve motor actions, was instructed as “Yogo-kunren” in Kirigaoka. And other point of view was not emphasized except a few research.

Instruction for vocal imitation of names of things was provided to a young child with autism spectrum disorder, by using mora rhythm tapping. The effects of each component of the intervention procedures on vocal imitation based on mora were investigated. Furthermore, possible transfer of stimulus control to naming skills was also assessed. First, pronunciations were evaluated, and then, voices with mora rhythms, tapping models by the instructor, and child’s guidance in tapping, were successively presented to the child. As a result, accurate vocal imitation and naming skills were more effectively achieved by the instructor and the child tapping a card to mora of the voice model, compared to presentation of the voice model by the instructor. The above results are discussed from the perspective of clarifying discriminative stimuli in vocal expressions and the transfer of stimulus control.

This study aimed to investigate the content changes of novice teachers’ training programs for special needs schools and discuss the annual plan devised by one prefectural board of education. This program was introduced in 1992 in Japan. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology formulated guidelines for the program. Each of the boards devised their annual plans following these guidelines. The program has on-and off-the-job components. The focus and results of the off-the-job component are implementing swift changes in the program as per national policies and requirements in the special needs education system and medical care as well as solving current special needs education problems, with special focus on providing education for children with severe and multiple disabilities. Currently, the duration of the program is three years. The content for second and third year comprises many practical activities to help improve teaching skills. The results showed that the off-the-job training component helps in providing fundamental knowledge and improving teaching skills. Further, a future consideration of the study is to link on-and off-the-job components.

“Teaching playing” is an instructional method within integrated study that combines fields and subjects at special schools for children with intellectual and developmental disabilities. This study examined the reasons for incorporating “teaching playing” by organizing instructional practices featuring “playing” that were implemented from the 1970s to the 1990s at two special schools for children with “mental retardation.” Common to both schools, an increase in children with severe, profound, and multiple disabilities was the background for incorporating “teaching playing” as a form of instruction within integrated study. Furthermore, both schools had been implementing “teaching playing” prior to it being described in the “Courses of study for schools for children with ‘mental retardation’.” It was found that education for children with “mental retardation,” which has focused on building up children’s life experience, regarded playing as a desirable life experience to provide to children at lower developmental stages. Also, playing has been positioned as a teaching material that should be at the core of an experience-based learning unit.

The purpose of this study is to clarify the factors of the differentiation of vocational education from practical education in the reformatory of Toyama Prefecture before and during World War II. Jutoku Gakuen, the reformatory of Toyama prefecture, provided children in the reformatory with practical education in farming in order to cultivate their character, rather than to train them as farmers, because the teachers believed that farming and nature could rehabilitate them. As vocational education, Jutoku Gakuen provided them with sewing and laundry training in the workshop even though such education was not common in other reformatories in Japan. The reason Jutoku Gakuen succeeded in providing children with vocational education is the differentiation of cultivation and vocational education by founding the workshop with financial support and teaching assistance from the community.

For clarifying the views of Yasumasa Miki on “mental retardation” in the Postwar Period, we discussed several key points. These include the development of education and welfare systems for children with mental retardation, and Miki’s statements on this. The analyses and discussions were divided into two periods as follows: the period when the field of education for children with mental retardation was developed (from 1945 to the late 1950s), and the period when the method of education for children with mental retardation was discussed (from the early 1960s to 1984). As a result, in the former period, Miki positioned the class itself as a small society for children to learn about group living. Moreover, he considered the special class as the quintessence of education for children with mental retardation. He thought that the special class was a place where children with mental retardation could enjoy the feeling of stability and would become a basis for their livelihood. Furthermore, Miki expected the existence of a special class in an ordinal school to play the role of moral education to improve the understanding and enlightenment of “normal children.” In the latter period, Miki pursued the enrichment and improvement of curriculum for children with mental retardation. Miki argued that the education could give children with mental retardation the expanded opportunities enabling them to “live with the goal of life.” Miki clarified the principle of life education with learning units of life experiences and curriculum, and his views were not on the dualism of life education and subject education but the integrated education understandable to them as the “education for children with mental retardation.” However, Miki had expected that further understanding of mental retardation and the development of a method and system where children with all kinds of individual differences could be educated at the same time in an ordinal class might result in “educational integration” in the future.

【Purpose】Electric acupuncture (EA) to sciatic nerve is a useful technique in clinical practice. Nevertheless, it's observed the students in acupuncture-moxibustion and manual therapy (AMT) courses in blind schools have low success rate of it. This nationwide survey is to clarify what factors contribute to the difficulty in acquiring the technique.【Objective】97 third-grade blind students in AMT courses in 2015 school year.【Method】Anonymous self-administered questionnaire by mail. 【Result】They answered the easiest EA is to elector spinae (64.2%) and the most difficult, to sciatic nerve (43.6%). Radial nerve EA got the highest rate (68.0%) as the technique they felt unable to use in treatment, followed by sciatic nerve (50.5%), trapezius muscle (36.1%), and elector spinae (26.8%). Besides, 89.7% wanted to acquire EA to sciatic nerve.【Conclusion】"Absence of instruction for EA in class" generally contributed to their feeling of difficulty. However, "palpation skill of target tissue" affected the difficulty regarding EA to erector spinae and radial nerve, "risk management skill" regarding trapezius muscle EA, and "positioning puncture point" regarding sciatic nerve EA.

This study was intended to clarify the actual conditions of school dormitory education in Special Needs Education School for the Visually Impaired. I had a questionnaire survey to the staff of the dormitory. The result of the questionnaire says that the dormitory is chosen as the place of life and education by children who are not hard to attend school. Furthermore, cross-age interaction, communal living in the dormitory let children bring-up each other, and they can learn the basic lifestyle there. They are some of educational significance. I found children can learn the skill for independent and communication by school dormitory education. For the school dormitory, Future problems include maintenance of the learning environment and the increase of the opportunity of going out for their children. In the school dormitory, various of activities are worked on. They are close to children’s daily lives. From now on, school dormitory is hoped that children can live there “voluntarily”, not only who is far and hart to attend school, but also who want to improve their skills of living and self-support.

Currently, there are approximately 120,000 students who do not attend elementary or middle schools regularly in Japan. The government has been taking various measures including the assignment of school counselors in order to meet their educational needs. However, we have limited information about non-attendance at schools for special needs education. In addition, there are not many studies on real life situations of these students and ways to support them. The aim of this study was to determine the number of non-attending students at special needs schools as well as the annual changes in retention rates based on the results of School Basic Survey. We also reviewed previous studies to examine the research trends in this issue. Although the overall retention rate at ordinary schools are about 2.5 times higher than one at special needs schools, the number of non-attending students at special needs schools tends to be increasing in recent years as is the case with ordinary schools. The research topics in 12 of 17 previous studies were related to schools for students with health impairments; however, there were no studies on special needs schools for the visually or hearing impaired. Future studies need to clarify the reasons for non-attendance, the supporting methods currently being used, and the progress of these supporting systems. It is necessary to accumulate reliable information to provide adequate support for non-attending students at special needs schools.

This study carried out a behavioral consultation with a special needs education classroom teacher (consultee) of a student (client), who had developmental disabilities and demonstrated problem behaviors, and then evaluated the effects of the behavioral contract between the consultee and the client for a desired behavior. The interview with the consultee and behavioral observation on the client indicated that the client demonstrated problem behaviors, particularly throwing cleaning tools and breaking out into violent language toward classmates during cleaning period in a regular classroom. The consultee taught the client certain cleaning skills and engaged in a behavior contract, in which the client can implement learning materials in teacher’s personal computer for five minutes once he had finished cleaning. The consultee carried out these interventions to further engage the client in cleaning behavior and reduce the frequency of problem behaviors during cleaning period. After the interventions, the client demonstrated improved cleaning and reduced problem behaviors. Moreover, social validity to the intervention effects and acceptability to the intervention had been highly evaluated by the consultee and the client. These results suggest that the behavior contract used in this study was effective.

This practice report shows how markedly the signs of selective mutism in a first-grade male student improved after consultation was provided to the child’s teacher, special education coordinator, and mother for 1 year 9 months. Consultations took place in a university consulting room once a month. Small steps based on stimulus fading and exposure were developed to improve the boy’s clinical signs. For each small step, the class teacher and the special education coordinator discussed a procedure that could be implemented in the classroom; in addition, the boy’s mother asked his opinion on the procedure and practiced part of it at home. Consultations were terminated when the boy moved up to the third grade, because he no longer had difficulty giving regular presentations in class or conversing with his peers during breaks. At 5 years 2 months after the last consultation, in a follow-up consultation, it was reported that the boy no longer had problems with speaking or school life.

The objective of this study is to investigate the effects and issues on designing Individual Teaching Plans (ITP) for a child with Cerebral Palsy in a regular elementary school by the collaboration of the teachers in both elementary school and special needs school. In this study, association chart of the issues is used to provide ITP to evaluate child’s actual condition. This method is shown to be very effective for the elementary school teacher who is not familiar with designing ITP to visualize and organize issues, then to get the direction for teaching. More over, the burden of the elementary school teacher in charge of children with disabilities has been reduced. It is shown that the collaboration of normal and special school teachers are so important and this could be a main stream in the central organization of the special school. However, time consumption to provide ITP and negative feeling the teacher has to provide ITP are the main problems to be solved in the future. To enhance ITP in each elementary school, more studies are needed.

Behavioral contracting was conducted to a college student with autism spectrum disorders to investigate whether self-learning was facilitated. The support plan was designed on the basis of the results of assessment which were conducted at the first interview. First, a goal setting was introduced by deciding the number of questions to be tackled in self-learning. Subsequently, a behavioral contracting writing the goal and describing the delivery of corresponding reinforcers was introduced. After the intervention with the behavioral contracting, only the goal setting was conducted again, and its effects on facilitating self-learning was assessed. Results indicated that self-learning was not facilitated only by goal setting and that the behavioral contracting was effective for facilitating selflearning. The above results are discussed from the perspective of establishing and managing reinforcers through behavioral contracting, and moreover, significance as supports for students with disabilities.

The purpose of this study was to analyze PDCA cycle of a teacher who was involved with home visiting education. This study contained interview as study Ⅰ and lesson studies as study Ⅱ.Study Ⅰ: We showed the reflection of her lessons experience before and after beginging as a teacher of home visiting education. We found that the teacher had difficulties which based on home visiting education, and she changed her mind about students, targets, the stream of lesson, and teaching methods or instruments. Study Ⅱ: We wanted for the teacher to wacth the VTR of her lessons and answer PDCA cycle for these lessons. Then the teacher reflected of students mainly. So that, based students, targets and the stream of lesson and teaching methods or instruments of each lesson were made better. From the above, we conclude that it was useful for defining the most important point of all lesson that we implemented interview and lessons study integrally and it was PDCA cycle by the teacher of home visiting education that she centered the student to make her lessons better.

In our research project we carried out guidance for breathing control in 30-minute sessions (total of 8 sessions) for a 2nd year boy student suffering from an advanced case of hearing loss. We studied the influence of said guidance on the child’s pronunciation. The contents of the guidance provided included work with ‘whistles and soap bubbles employed for control of breathing’, ‘/a/ pronunciation practice’ and ‘vocalized reading with comprehension of picture books’. We presented an explanation of this process to the targeted child and his guardians during the period of time of the guidance and examined its effectiveness. The results showed that the child was able to control his breathing, increase phonation time and more fluency in his voice quality. Furthermore, the guardians of the child expressed that they found positive significance in the improvements in the child’s speaking abilities. We can say as a result of this that for future areas of study that it will be of interest to further study the influence of guidance provided using singing for children who have become able to control their breathing on singing and speaking abilities.