In this study, we analysed the cognitive abilities that are predictors of reading acquisition in the Chinese language. To this end, the phonological skills, visual skills, naming speed, morphological awareness, vocabulary knowledge, nonverbal intelligence, and reading performance of 672 primary school children in China were assessed. Multiple regression analyses revealed that visual skill and naming speed were significant predictors of word-reading performance for children in lower grades. In contrast, phonological skills and vocabulary knowledge significantly contributed to the reading abilities of children in intermediate and advanced grades. Therefore, our results indicated that the relationship between reading performance and the different cognitive abilities change with age. We suggest that this may be due to the characteristics of the Chinese orthographic system, as well as the instruction method at primary schools in Mainland China.

Following the notice issued by the Ministry of Education in 1953, mentally retarded (MR) children were categorized as morons and imbeciles, who were to attend special classes and special schools for children with MR, and as severe imbeciles and idiots, who were to attend institutions for MR children. This paper examines the problems of education for the MR children in during 1953-1962 from the perspective of the institutions for MR children. Hence, it was found that education for MR children was based on the degree of disability, and institutions had designated MR children as per the provisions of the Child Welfare Law. However, the number of institutions for MR children and special classes and special schools for MR children was not sufficient, and thus, some MR children were placed under home guidance. Institutions for MR children had various problems, admission of adults aged over 18 years and setting up branches in institutions to provide mandatory education. Therefore, institutions for MR children had various functions, and only a part of those required by Special Education could be fulfilled.

This study examined the validity of “Support Needs Inventory” by analyzing the correlation between the inventory and characteristics of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The subjects were 65 university students who had academic difficulties and wanted to take psychological tests. On the basis of the results obtained, we also evaluated the relationship between the types of academic difficulties and the characteristics of ASD and ADHD, and cognitive ability, using multiple regression analysis. After answering the inventory, the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ), and Conners’ Adult ADHD Rating Scale (CAARS), the subjects completed the fourth edition of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-IV). The results showed a significant correlation between the difficulties measured by the inventory and the characteristics of ASD and ADHD measured by the AQ and CAARS, confirming the validity of the inventory. In addition, the ASD characteristics mainly contributed to difficulties in interpersonal relationships, and the ADHD characteristics mainly contributed to difficulties in attention and concentration. Cognitive ability, as measured by the WAIS-IV, showed only a weak correlation to all the types of academic difficulty.

Compared to elementary and junior high schools, the development of a high school support system for special needs education has been delayed. Among adolescents, autism spectrum disorder (ASD) characteristics can be a risk factor for mental health. This study examined the relationship between degree of ASD tendency and mental health status in high school students. Results show that the higher the ASD tendency, the worse the mental health status. The study demonstrates that mental health status can be estimated using the level of ASD tendency. It was also suggested that the correlation would be observed regardless of the degree of ASD knowledge of the teachers involved. Results also suggest that high schools need special support for students with ASD tendency, regardless of the presence or absence of ASD diagnosis. Since almost none of the high school teachers in charge have adequate knowledge to recognize and support students with high ASD tendency, it is necessary for them to undergo training according to their degree of ASD knowledge and have a support system.

The purpose of this study was to determine the current status of early intervention for preschool children with deaf and hard of hearing in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and consider the issues of early intervention for children with deaf and hard of hearing. A questionnaire survey was conducted among special-needs schools and related institutions that provide education for children with deaf and hard of hearing in Ho Chi Minh City, and complete responses were obtained from eight institutions. The survey revealed a lack of equipment and facilities for education of the deaf and hard of hearing, as well as insufficient teacher expertise. Teachers in charge of early intervention also noted that it was often difficult to obtain the cooperation of parents and families for various reasons, such as financial difficulties. For the future, it will be important to rebuild the system of collaboration around the core institutions.

This study investigated the reliability of the PASS scales on CAS2: Rating Scale for Japanese college students and the neuropsychological cognitive characteristics of autism spectrum disorder (ASD)and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and the relationship between these disorders’ behavioral characteristics. The Cognitive Assessment System second edition (CAS2): Rating Scale Japanese version was used and 148 Japanese university students were participated in this study. Participants were required to answer the CAS2: Rating Scale, The Autism-Spectrum Quotient Japanese version-10 (AQ-J-10), and Adults ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS) part-A, using the self-report format. Results revealed that the characteristic PASS process in CAS2: Rating Scale was not observed on the high scoring group on AQ-J-10. On the other hand, the high scoring group on ASRS part-A had low score on the attention scale in CAS2: Rating Scale. Therefore, we suggested that ASRS scores have a relationship with neuropsychological attention function.

This study reviewed the research into the usage of sign language and communication methods through nationwide investigations into the education of the deaf in Japan. It also discussed the significance of that research and future issues. Sign language usage in special needs schools for the deaf started in the 1990s at junior and senior high schools, and in the 2000s at preschools and elementary schools. Since then, sign language has been playing an important role as one of various communication tools. Moreover, most of the research into the sign language was in the form of practical reports from preschools and elementary schools and in teaching Japanese. It is suggested that an accumulation of research on various subjects, especially after junior high school, would be necessary to clarify the effects and challenges of sign language usage in special needs schools for the deaf.

This study on employment in charge of the internship for student with disabilities in corporations aimed to acquire pabulum for promoting the internship for students with disabilities in corporations by revealing the process of carrying out the internship and these factors. As a result of analysis by M-GTA, the powers of support to the process, such as a development of intracompany resources and philosophies and a returning profits to corporations from accepting students as interns, were the contributing factors. On the other hand, it is suggested that the obstructive factors, such as difficulty of cooperating with corporations and universities and hesitating factors caused by employment support, would be the burden. In order to extend the internship for students with disabilities, it is important to associate corporations and universities, to organize a system, and to change of consciousness for employment of people with disabilities.

The study aims to clarify actual conditions of life as a couple and parenting by people with intellectual disability, living conditions of mothers with intellectual disability (MwID), and social network for parenting along with the supports by conducting the questionnaire survey with counseling and support specialists working for consultation support offices and the relevant offices. This paper provides a report focusing on life as a couple and parenting of the above-described people with disability, living conditions of their MwID, and social network. According to the survey results, the study found that persons with intellectual disabilities with preparation of service utilization plan are possibly alienated from life events such as living as a couple and raising children. Many MwID may enter into a marriage to males without intellectual disability and raise children while not taking advantage of opportunity to use welfare services for persons with disabilities until adulthood. We found vulnerability for informal network, but there was also limited access to usage of formal parenting support services requiring a self-visit or application.

The purpose of this study was to clarify the actual conditions of child-rearing and support issues for parents of children with disabilities in Japanese families living in Paris. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with mothers of six Japanese families. Analysis of the interview contents suggested four factors: [Positive perception of parenting in France], [Anxiety, embarrassment, and anxiety about raising children in France], [Restrictions on the collection and use of information due to linguistic and cultural barriers], [Parenting support needs]. The mothers were anxious and confused about their social resources regarding parenting, even though they viewed raising children in Paris in a positive light. Among the parenting support needs identified were "linguistic support", "information provision regarding medical care and parenting in Japan", and "access to Japanese experts on child development". In particular, the weakness of support due to "Japanese living in a foreign country" amplifies the difficulty of raising children. Therefore, providing a place and opportunity for Japanese to connect with each other is an important issue. In the future, it will be necessary to disseminate information on child-rearing and to create a system that supports child-rearing in collaboration with Japanese-affiliated organizations.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the background of the amendment to the Korean Lifelong Education Act in 2016 and to examine the current situation and challenges of lifelong education for adults with disabilities in Korea. This study followed a literature research method. The results can be summarized as follows: The amendment of the Lifelong Education Act was influenced by the ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities by the United Nations and demands for lifelong education for disabled people from the disability rights movement. The National Lifelong Education Promotion Center for the Disabled was established in 2018, and other Lifelong education institutes were expanded. Furthermore, employment of lifelong education instructors was made mandatory in lifelong education institutes for the disabled, and curricula and programs have been developed and activated. The challenges are as follows. First, a sufficient budget should be secured for the relevant projects. Second, accessibility to lifelong education facilities needs to be improved. Third, lifelong education in which persons with and without disabilities can learn together should be encouraged. Fourth, the professionalism of workers in the field of lifelong education should be enhanced. Finally, lifelong education programs that account for diverse types and severities of disabilities should be developed and disseminated.

In this study, we examined the duration of reinforcer access on the choice between continuous and discontinuous arrangements in two school-age children with autism spectrum disorders. In the experiment, two color cards were presented to the children, and they were asked to choose between a continuous arrangement and a discontinuous arrangement. In continuous arrangement, the reinforcer appeared to the children for a long time during which they could engage in their preferred activity after the two worksheets were completed. In discontinuous arrangement, the reinforcer appeared after one print was completed, and this was repeated twice. In the baseline condition, regardless of which card was selected, the number of worksheets the children worked on and the amount of time they spent playing were equal. In the manipulation of the duration of reinforcer access condition, only in the discontinuous arrangements was the reinforcer’s presentation time reduced. The results showed that the two children showed preference for continuous arrangements in the manipulation of duration of reinforcer access condition. The results of this study suggest that the manipulation of duration of reinforcer access could influence the choice of children with autism spectrum disorders.

Evaluation of independence is necessary for fostering "independence" of children and students and verifying the teaching effect, but there are few studies that evaluate the independence of children with intellectual disabilities. In this study, a questionnaire survey was conducted in order to examine a questionnaire for teachers of special school to evaluate the independence of children with intellectual disabilities. As a result of factor analysis, the created questionnaire is thought to be related to the state of the individual in the relationship with the surroundings, "behavior adjustment according to the surrounding situation", "decision-making / expression", "to own activity" It was composed of three factors: "Aggressive efforts of." Each factor tended to be highly evaluated when the students were older. In addition, the mild group with intellectual disability was evaluated higher for each factor than the severe group. On the other hand, in the mild group, up to junior high school was highly evaluated when they were older, but the evaluation for high school students was lower than that of junior high school students. It can be said that intentional guidance for the development of independence is necessary based on the characteristics of each group's evaluation.

This study examined picture book reading activities at home. The contents of the survey were reading activities of picture books at home, the purpose of reading picture books, and points to keep in mind when reading picture books. The participants in the study included 76 preschool deaf children and 91 preschool hearing children. The participants were divided into two groups: Whole book story group (WBSG) and Part book story group (PBSG). The results indicated as follows: (1) The WBSG of preschool deaf children had long reading times. In order for preschool deaf children to read the story, it was considered to be related to reading activities at home. (2) Preschool deaf children had the purpose of "knowledge/understanding" in addition to "interest/ concern." (3) The WBSG of preschool deaf children and preschool hearing children was reading a picture book while interacting with their parents. It is suggested that in future, it is necessary to study how preschool deaf children share the reading of picture books.

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the current status of the development of Alternate Assessment System based on Common State Alternate Achievement Standards in the U.S. The DLM Alternate Assessment System used a probability model called Dynamic Learning Maps to aid in the inference of diverse learning progressions of Students with the Most Significant Cognitive Disabilities. The development of the initial map began with the CCSS, Nodes were created around the key ideas contained in the CCSS wording to serve as learning objectives for Students with the Most Significant Cognitive Disabilities, which were then linked to the DLM Essential Elements. There were a few cases that seemed to be difficult to deal with CCSS and DLM Essential Elements. It was thought that the emphasis should be on the ways in which Students with the Most Significant Cognitive Disabilities can achieve with the help of their life contexts, people, and objects. It was also thought that they needed a teaching and assessment system that would allow them to grow in a way that was more familiar to general education.

Regarding ASD, emotional problems such as high alexithymia tendency, difficulty in emotion regulation, and high anxiety tendency have been pointed out. In this study, after reviewing various questionnaires used in the evaluation of alexithymia tendency, we examined studies dealing with the relationship between alexithymia tendency, anxiety, and emotional regulation in ASD. Various studies suggest that the alexithymia tendency of ASD is a cognitive difficulty, the analysis based on alexithymia subtypes is useful, and that these factors are related to each other. On the other hand, the influence and causality of these factors on each other have not been clarified yet, and further studies that considered these issues are of critical importance. Also, clinically, the link between research findings regarding the characteristics of ASD alexithymia tendency and intervention will become more important in the future.

This study tested the effects of training that targeted knowledge acquisition on the designing behavioral support plans based on functional behavioral assessment. The participants were four teachers of special needs schools for intellectual disabilities. The training consisted of a lecture on the functional behavioral assessment and homework in which participants practiced what they had learned in the lecture to students at school. The evaluation indicators were the content of the participants' behavior support plans for fictitious cases, their knowledge of applied behavior analysis, and their records of students' behavior problems. As a result, the content of behavioral support plans for fictitious cases and knowledge of applied behavioral analysis improved, and students' behavior problems decreased. This study demonstrated the effectiveness of the training in this study for teachers of special needs schools for intellectual disabilities. This study also confirmed the validity of the participants' acquisition of knowledge about functional behavioral assessment, which was an issue of previous research. In the future, this study indicated the need for replication and establishment of a control group to test the external validity of the study's findings.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a parent-implemented video-based school readiness intervention on two preschool children with ASD. The present study used a multiple probe design across target behaviors to investigate the effects of the intervention. Based on the results of interviews with parents and behavioral observations, we selected nine social scenes and eight group activity scenes necessary for the transition to school. The target behavior was the expression of the rules of appropriate behavior in each situation. Parents used the tablet device to encourage children to observe appropriate behavior and behavioral rules in social and group situations. If the child spontaneously expressed the rules of appropriate behavior, parents gave verbal praise. In addition, the therapist performed roleplays of social and group activity situations with the children. The results showed that both children acquired the rules of appropriate behavior in social and group activity situations, and the expression of appropriate behavior rules in group activity situations was maintained even after entering elementary school. Moreover, some items on the behavior checklist created by the parents for social and group activity skills were improved after the intervention and maintained after starting elementary school.

This study reports on the progress of a 1-year, 3-month intervention aimed at reducing stuttering symptoms in a second-grade boy whose main complaint was the symptoms of stuttering and whose stuttering problems surfaced after the improvement of selective mutism. There was no apparent decrease in severity rating and frequency of disfluency during therapy situations in the Lidcombe Program with the therapist, but there was a decrease in severity rating in playground situations with the mother. His disfluency occurred more frequently in utterances of three or more clauses than in those of one or two clauses. Furthermore, the final part-word of repetitions occurred only in utterances of three or more clauses.In the future, the linguistic aspect of the study will be examined more closely, and results suggest that the therapy settings should be adjusted to maintain the same level of fluency as in situations with the mother.

This study evaluated the effectiveness of a parent training implemented by a child development support staff for parents of child with developmental disabilities. The staff was provided a lecture on the implementation of the parent training before implementation and discussed fidelity of the parent training and results of works by the parents with the researchers after each session on the phone. The staff implemented the parent training for 4 parents of young child with autism spectrum disabilities. The parent training was composed of selecting target behaviors and routines, developing parenting procedures that used antecedent and consequent controls, monitoring their children’s target behaviors at target routines, and modifying the parenting procedures based on results of parent monitoring. We evaluated whether the children’s target behaviors increased and categorized the staff’s feedback on the reports by parents as listening, labeled praise, unlabeled praise, statement about children, statement about parents, direct instruction, suggestion, relating statement, corrective criticism, or other. The results suggested that three children’s target behaviors increased as a result of parent monitoring. The analysis of the staff’s feedback suggests that future research should develop and evaluated the implementation training which promotes staffs to use labeled praises and statements about children.

The present study examined the effectiveness of social skills intervention using video modeling in self-reliance activities and assessed the social validity of materials and intervention procedures. Two children attending a class for special needs children with autism spectrum disorder and emotional disorder participated in this study. Based on the results of behavioral observations and interviews with the teacher, positive initiation and response during classroom and game activities were identified as target behaviors. The first author prepared video materials, instructional sheets, and manuals for the teacher and provided instructions orally and in writing on how to use and teach target behaviors using video modeling. Intervention was provided by the teacher was taught three times for a total of 90 minutes. The results showed that there was an increase in positive initiation and response and a decrease in negative initiation and response in the classroom after the intervention. The teacher rated the materials and procedures in this study highly as acceptable and effective and would recommend them to other teachers. Therefore, it was suggested that social skills intervention using video modeling has high applicability in self-reliance activities in classes for special needs children with autism spectrum disorder and emotional disorder.

We created a reflection sheet for reviewing the work experience of students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and tried to verify the effect from the state of achievement of students' tasks, changes in self-efficacy, and interviews after the practice. The interview using the reflection sheet was carried out for 1 ASD student in all 8 times work experience, and the impression of the practice was heard after all practices were finished. Students answered the following before and after the practice: Career Decision-Making Self-efficacy, Generalized Self-Efficacy Scale, and Career Maturity Scale. As a result of the practice, the scores of all three scales increased through the reflection of the experience using the sheet. The results suggest that that the mastery experience and verbal persuasion the change in self-efficacy, and that positive feedback on the individual and discussions on measures for the individual's strengths, weaknesses, and weaknesses contributed to the deepening of self-understanding. It was useful for smoothly advancing the work experience that the interview content was structured and visualized by the use of the reflection sheet. In the future, it is necessary to examine the effect based on the assessment of the recognition characteristic of the student, and to examine the expansion of the use to other developmental disorder students.

In this practice, a child with low vision was given a series of instructions that required the use of various low vision aids (monocular, magnifier, and tablet) in distance vision/near vision situations with and without tasks. The objective of the practice was to have the child understand the characteristics of each low vision aid and how to decide which to use in what context. During this guidance, through the efficiency of the use of each low vision aid in the tasks and the interaction during instruction, the child was able to understand that monocular and magnifier are quicker and more suitable for distance/near vision without a task and that iPads are more suitable for distance/near vision with work because of their ability to store images, and based thereupon was able to put into practice decisions on which to use. Upon review six months after the guidance, the continuation and generalization of the educational effect were confirmed. These results suggest that when teaching children with low vision to use various low vision aids, it is important to provide specific situations in which they can use the aids and compare the efficiency of each aid, and to provide feedback to help them understand the characteristics of each aid and then encourage them to use the aids independently based on their characteristics.

This study provided training in reading and writing Hiragana representing voiced sounds to a girl with Down Syndrome and tested its effectiveness. As an assessment, her Hiragana reading and writing skills and her cognitive abilities related to the acquisition of literacy were measured. In addition to phonological abilities, her visual cognitive faculties and auditory memory were found to be poor. To compensate for these, training combining visual and auditory methods of learning was used. The child practiced by looking at a character and the voiced sound mark and saying each phrase representing the notation of the target voiced sound. For practiced characters, reading and writing accuracies after training were higher than before. Her reading accuracy was maintained for six months after training. These results suggest that reading and writing training based on the child’s cognitive characteristics in this study was effective.