This study examines the effects of both individual and group-oriented contingency on the peer interactions and spontaneous supportive behaviors among children with developmental disorders. The children were initially given a brief period of training to acquire supportive skills to help their peers. Structured games were developed to focus the children's attention on the target behaviors of asking about and responding to each other's opinions. When the results of the training were assessed, two of the three boys did not appear to have fully acquired the desired skills. The other boy did not understand the essence of group-oriented contingency or interdependency. Though the former two boys understood group-oriented contingency, they did not realize that they could make up for their peer's mistakes and could not calculate how many correct responses they needed to make in order to attain a reinforcing response from their peers. This study thus suggests that the ability to count and calculate is an important element for the successful application of group-oriented contingency to children with developmental disorders.

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This study reports on a course of speech therapy for a boy with severe stuttering as well as other problems such as underdeveloped cooperative motor control. Along with speech therapy, general developmental support was provided over a period of five years. Motor coordination training and psychological support were important parts of the program. As a result of the treatment, the boy's stuttering improved remarkably. In addition, both the boy and his mother came to accept the stuttering which remained.

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This paper focuses on optimality theory, one of the leading theories in phonology. Optimality theory, which employs the notion of phonological constraints to account for language acquisition and change, is compared with other theories such as generative phonology and natural phonology which have been characterized as rule-based theories. An analysis of the process of acquiring Japanese [r] is used to illustrate the differences between optimality theory, considered as a constraint-based theory, and rule-based theories.

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This paper reports on an analysis of longitudinal speech data from five Japanese children. The data represents spontaneous speech and was recorded at the subjects' homes. The analysis focuses on the early stage language acquisition from the viewpoint of phonetics and phonology. Based on prior studies of the transition from the prelinguistic period to the early stages of language acquisition, this study attempts to provide a more detailed analysis of the phonetic and phonological features of Japanese during this period. Three main topics were discussed: 1) cross-linguistic similarities and differences in the language acquisition process, 2) the problem of continuity in the period of transition from the pre-linguistic level to the initial stages of language acquisition, and 3) theories of language acquisition. The children's speech data was divided into four levels (first word, first ten words, first thirty words, and first fifty to sixty words acquired) and then analyzed in terms of the characteristics of vowels and consonants, the place and manner of articulation, and the syllabic structure of meaningful words.

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This paper presents an argument for the need to develop a battery of tests for assessing phonological awareness of the Japanese language. It has been reported that there are some children with phonological disorders who have a low level of phonological awareness and who might also have reading difficulties. Phonological awareness is the ability to identify the phonological components in a word and manipulate them intentionally. It has been suggested that phonological awareness might underlie the correct articulation of words and sentences because it enables one to identify phonological components, grasp sound sequences, and form internal phonological representations of words and sentences. In addition, the assessment of phonological awareness is indispensable in the diagnosis of dyslexia. The assessment of phonological awareness might also be useful in the case of phonological disorders as well since it would provide important information relating to the underlying mechanism of the disorder and to therapy. Several batteries of tests for assessing phonological awareness of English have been developed and widely used. It thus seems important to develop a battery of tests for assessing phonological awareness of Japanese.

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This paper reports on the training given to a child with cleft palate and having various problems with articulation. Living in a home for underprivileged children, the child was also hard of hearing and suffered from delayed speech development. In the course of treatment, developmental errors in articulation such as the omission of initial consonants and syllables and the assimilation of sounds were observed. The child also acquired consonants in a different order than is normally the case: velar sounds were acquired before dental/alveolar sounds. The training gave particular attention to training in the sounds/t, s, and ts/. As the child had good velopharyngeal closure, articulation problems related to cleft palate markedly improved in the course of training.

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The paper reports on the results of a course of speech therapy for monozygotic twin boys. One of the boys, brother A, had been born with a cleft palate which had been surgically reconstructed. At the age of three years and ten months, the boys demonstrated similar phonological disorders with the main misarticulation involving glottal stops. Although the boys were assumed to share the same environmental and genetic factors, brother A had a mild delay in language development, and brother B was delayed in sociality. The misarticulation of glottal stops by brother B was regarded as having been learned from his brother and so his speech was expected to gradually improve naturally as his brother's speech improved. Consequently, systematic speech therapy was conducted only for brother A over a period of about two years from age three years and eleven months to age six. Throughout this period, the speech brother B was evaluated every three months. The brother B acquired normal articulation in a short period of time aided only by instruction at home by his mother.

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In teaching words to autistic children, it is best to clarify the meaning of the words for the child before having them memorize them. It is difficult, however, to teach the meaning of words to autistic children through the usual methods. This paper reports on a method to teach autistic children the meaning of words by beginning with a topic whose general meaning the child can intuitively understand. Based on an evaluation of the child's initial understanding of the topic and related words, instruction then proceeds by clarifying the meaning of the words through dialogue with the child.

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