This study evaluated whether the persons with disabilities accepted the Independent Living Philosophy in the context of the introduction of the Independent Living Philosophy. The results are as follows: (1) Young generation with disabilities started a newspaper to voice their opinion to solve the disability issues, (2) Young people with disabilities encountered the Philosophy of Independent Living, as they were challenged by problems such as nonhuman treatment at the residence facilities of people with disabilities, and restrictions on job and participation in the society, (3) At first, the Independent Living Philosophy was introduced as an overseas program by researchers. However, since then it has been introduced by disabled parties both at home and abroad as a revolutionary philosophy that respects self-determination of persons with disabilities. This difference from conventional disability protection and discrimination increased the possibility of introduction in Korea.

The study aims to clarify the educational situation and special educational needs of children with cancer through an investigation into parents whose children have long-term hospitalization in China. Parents and their children who are hospitalized have a positive attitude to school recovery, but they are worried about the life of school recovery. Thus, the consideration of understanding children’s condition and improving psychological supports should be emphasized during school recovery. On the other hand, in China, hospital classrooms do not have enough educational function and parents do not understand hospital classrooms very well. Hospital classroom teachers should improve expertise and collaboration with hospitals, which is important for hospital classrooms in China to enrich their educational content.

In this study, self-stimulatory behavior was observed. This study aimed to investigate a child with autism for whom praise had not previously been established as a conditioned reinforcer through contingent pairing with food or toys as reinforcers. Praise was then conditioned using a toy that elicits automatic reinforcer as a reinforcer, and the results were examined. Following the training, when the target behavior occurred, comments with praise were heard infrequently during daily life, and the toy that elicited automatic reinforcer was given at the same time as the praise. The praise following the contingent pairing with the toy that elicited automatic reinforcer as a reinforcer resulted in the child engaging in a high frequency of clapping for 12 blocks. Furthermore, the results demonstrated that other behaviors for which contingent pairing was not performed occurred more frequently during the Period of Praise after the Pairing II Period than in the Baseline Period. The results of this study suggest the effectiveness of conditioning praise in which the reinforcer is a toy that elicits automatic reinforcer.

This research considers the opportunities enabled expert teachers, who oversee early education consultation at schools for the visually impaired, to enhance their self-efficacy in providing consultations. We aimed to clarify what kind of opportunities enhanced their self-efficacy for each consultation categories. Participants included twelve teachers who 1) have over seven years of early education consultation experience, 2) have worked as the manager of an education consultation department, and 3) possess a special education teacher certification in area of visual impairment. Opportunities leading to their self-efficacy were explored by consultation category using semi-structured interviews. 616 opportunities were extracted using a qualitative analysis method. Thereafter, these opportunities were classified into eight broad categories consisting of 65 subcategories. This analysis revealed that daily educational activities and training enhanced the self-efficacy for vision, childcare, developmental and psychological consultations. Participation in the school attendance committee enhanced the self-efficacy for school attendance consultations for preschool children. Visiting regular kindergartens enhanced the self-efficacy for supporting these kindergartens. Collaboration with other professionals enhanced the self-efficacy for medical consultation.

The purpose of the present study was to examine effects of difference in means to decrease visual difficulty (utilization of tablet, low vision aids, or close-proximity vision) on nondisabled college students' attitudes toward academic supports for peers with low vision. Participants were instructed that they received disability disclosure and help seeking by student with low vision. After reading disability disclosure sentences, students without disabilities (N = 382) answered a questionnaire based on interpersonal image and attitude toward support service for students with low vision. The results showed that conditions of using tablet and close-proximity vision gave more difficult image than that of using low vision aids. However, condition of using tablet induced more negative attitude toward academic support for students with low vision than another conditions. On the other hand, women perceived positive image compared to men. Moreover, women also had more positive attitude toward support service for students with low vision. In conclusion, these results will help students with low vision to choose the method disability disclosure and help seeking.

The purpose of this study was to understand the school enrolment patterns for deaf and hard of hearing students with multiple disabilities and to examine their educational needs in special schools in Miyazaki. In 2016, the total of deaf and HOH students with multiple disabilities enrolled in special schools was 3.15% and 70% of them were enrolled in special schools exclusively or mainly for students with intellectual disabilities (ID). The deaf and HOH students with multiple disabilities who were enrolled in deaf schools wore hearing aids or cochlear implants because they had severe to profound hearing loss; however, their ID were rated mild or moderate. In contrast, the degree of hearing loss of deaf and HOH students with multiple disabilities enrolled in special schools exclusively and mainly for students with ID was less than severe to profound, but most were identified with severe to profound ID. Remarkably, 60 % students enrolling in the special school exclusively for students with ID had severe or profound hearing loss, that is, they needed visual aids such as sign, picture cards, and written texts all through class activities similar to students enrolling in deaf schools. However, special schools exclusively or mainly for students with ID might not be able to provide environments which promote their communication developments because of a lack of fundamental knowledge, trained teaching skills, modified curriculum, deliberate learning groups, and facilities to meet needs of students with ID whose additional need was deafness.

This study on resource room teacher for children with partial sight aimed to reveal the difficulties faced by such students and the device of teaching methods using edge tools in arts and crafts classes at a regular elementary school. As a result, there were 4 categories with scissors, 5 categories with a cutter knife, 3 categories with sculpture sword, 3 categories with saws, and 5 categories with electric thread saw in the difficulty of using edge tools answers were obtained and there are 5 categories with scissors, 4 categories with cutter knives, 4 categories with sculpture sword, 6 categories with saws, 7 categories with electric thread saws device of teaching methods in the use of edge tools answers were obtained. It is important to cope with individuals of difficulty in using edge tools and device of teaching methods for children with partial sight, because there are many items shared by 6 teachers in four items, almost one case for one item. Also, it is important to grasp the difficulties according to individuals and to be important as a point of view when devising of teaching methods that common categories are found in each item.

The present study investigated the effect of stimulus type of the visual stop-signal task on the behavioral performance and event-related potentials (ERPs) in two groups of the typical adult population grouped by their ADHD tendency. For this purpose, twenty-three participants were divided into two groups according to the scores of CAARS (hADHD: high ADHD tendency group, lADHD: low ADHD tendency group). Two conditions, the car condition and the shape condition, were set for the stop-signal task according to its type of stimulus. The behavioral results demonstrated a marked increase in the commission error rate to Go stimulus in the car condition and in the hADHD group. In terms of ERP results, for the hADHD group, there was a significant decrease in the Go-N2 and the SST-N2 amplitude, in addition to the significant shortening of SST-P3. No marked differences were demonstrated according to the stimulus type. The results of behavioral performance and Go-N2 suggested the marked difficulty in making distinction between left and right in the hADHD group as compared to the lADHD regardless of the conditions. Further, the results of the SST-N2 suggested the difficulty in response control in the hADHD group. The results also suggested that the possible effectiveness of the priming effect between Go and Stop stimuli might be effective to ADHD population. The results also suggested the possible improvement in response control process in hADHD group by the semantic relativity between Go and Stop stimuli.

This study conducted a questionnaire survey regarding the transportation-related needs of students who are attending the A Special Needs School for Intellectually Disabled Children. The study was conducted in order to examine Travel Training/Transportation Education Programs for intellectually disabled children. As a result it was found, among other things, that "children from the elementary school level to the high school level tend to spend their after-school hours outside their homes," that "while, until high school, parents are responsible for training their children to deal with expansions in their living areas and means of transportation, many parents are unaware of the availability of training services," that "challenges unique to urban centers, such as the lack of traveling skills in crowded areas and not knowing how to respond to trouble, are being encountered on a daily basis," that "there is a high demand for training on how to pay attention to speeding bicycles and pedestrians on the sidewalk," and that "there is a high demand for training on how to respond to troublesome situations." 95 percent of parents said they desired opportunities for their children to receive Travel Training/Transportation Education.

Since April 2012, a service to support after-school activities of school children with disabilities has been provided according to the Child Welfare Act as one of the daycare services for children with disabilities. At present, the feature of the provided supports in response to attributes of the target child and considerations to improve the quality of the support have not yet been revealed. Therefore, in this study, questionnaire was sent to after-school day service facilities throughout the country to elucidate a feature of supports in response to the attribute of the target child. As a result, although it was not possible to clarify the details related to the expertise of the staff and the qualitative aspects of the service, it turned out that one of the characteristic features is that the support is provided for depending on the type of a disability in a child, their school year, the type of the school of their affiliation, and that the service contents are clearly different depending on those factors. In addition, it is thought that in the future it will be necessary to clarify through further research regarding whether high quality services are being provided, what are the services’ specializations and what is the quality level of such services.

The present study reviewed previous research on interventions for young children with selective mutism at kindergartens or nurseries in Japan. Of the previous research published in Japanese academic journals, ten studies were selected on the basis of our inclusion criteria. The age range of the subjects was from two to six. Many subjects had no speech, were excessive tension, and did not participate in activities or play in the classroom. Interventions for speaking and interventions for classroom routines and programs, were being conducted by the child carers or external supporters. Result, all subjects participated in activities or play and many of them could speak. Very few related studies have been published in Japanese journals. Thus, there is a great need for further research, including investigation of interventions for young children with selective mutism at kindergartens or nurseries in foreign countries, and of the status of selective mutism in Japan.

Fingerspelling is a system in which written words are spelled, letter by letter, using manual configurations. The focus of this proposal is to examine the importance of fingerspelling for vocabulary acquisition in young children. We reviewed studies in Europe, the United States, and Japan dealing with (a) characteristics of fingerspelling, (b) how children acquire fingerspelling, and (c) connections between fingerspelled words and spoken language vocabulary. Many studies have been published on children’s fingerspelling acquisition, and exposure to fingerspelling by parents or teachers appears to play an important role in children’s vocabulary and language acquisition in the United States. However, little is known about the role of the fingerspelling system in Japanese vocabulary and language acquisition.Therefore, further consideration is needed to yield any substantial findings about the relationship between early language acquisition for children with hearing impairment and the use of fingerspelling, particularly in the process of “chaining,” which encourages children to see the connections between a fingerspelled word, a sign language word, a printed word, and others.

Although teaching reading and writing to children with Down syndrome has been proposed to be tackled from the latter half of early childhood to early childhood period, few studies on the ability to read and write for children with Down syndrome in Japan. On the other hand, in overseas prior research, the number of researches is larger than in Japan, and reading and writing guidance programs for children with Down Syndrome have been developed. In this research, I reviewed the research on reading and writing of children with Down syndrome in Japan and abroad, and looked for the results and problems of the previous study. 7 previous studies in Japan and 15 previous studies abroad. In overseas, research on reading and writing has been conducted for many children with Down syndrome, but in Japan there were most case studies as types of papers. In the future, examining the relationship between literacy and cognitive ability and environmental factors for many children with Down syndrome was mentioned as a task.

The number of students with developmental disorders has been increasing year after year at higher education institutions, and issues related to career and employment have also been studied variously. When thinking about job hunting support for students with developmental disabilities, it is important to understand tasks peculiar to students with developmental disabilities and comprehensively examine them according to individual obstacle characteristics. However, because expertise is also required, cooperation with not only campus resources but also support organizations outside the university and various programs is a pillar of support. Therefore, in this research, we developed and offered the "Employment Preparation Course" program centered on simulated workplace experiences utilizing resources outside the school for students with developmental disabilities, and examined the effect. As a result, cooperation was obtained from 12 students who participated in this program in FY 2016 and FY 2017, and it was possible to consider that there was an effect on improvement of the preparation for employment and the assessment function of the characteristics.

The current study evaluated the effectiveness of stimulus fading and contingency management with the introduction of behavioral intervention for a child with selective mutism in the educational consultation room at the university. The procedure involved the variation of the activity period and the person who participate in the activity in the playroom, based on stimulus fading. The dependent variables included the level of speech, facial expression, and body movement, under the various conditions; and the speech level was measured based on a five-step checklist. The speech began to increase in the free activity with sub-therapist, and spontaneous speech was observed in the playing school with main-therapist. Facial expression showed increased smiling as the speech level changed. No body movement was observed in any session. The current study was mainly conducted in an educational consultation setting. However, the symptoms of selective mutism improved partially in the kindergarten and elementary school settings. As the speech and facial expression level fluctuated greatly, depending on the activity content, further studies are needed to investigate more effective adjustment of participants and activities.