This study of the Japanese version of the Repetitive Behavior Scale-Revised (RBS-R) focused on individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). There were 53 participants in the ASD group (male n = 42; mean age = 11.2, SD = 10.5 years) and the control group consisted of 40 individuals (23 mentally retarded and 17 of typical development). Clinicians scored them on the RBS-R, based on the participant's parental reports. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was .91, indicating good internal consistency. Across 15 ASD individuals, intra-class correlation coefficients on 43 items ranged from .79 to 1.00, demonstrating satisfactory inter-rater reliability. Both the RBS-R overall number of items endorsed and overall score were significantly higher in the ASD group than in the control group, demonstrating discriminant validity. Significant correlations (r = .65) between the RBS-R overall score and the total score of three items concerning repetitive behavior (from the Childhood Autism Rating Scale-Tokyo Version) demonstrated good concurrent validity. These results suggest the Japanese RBS-R is a valid and reliable instrument for evaluation of repetitive behaviors by Japanese individuals with ASD, although further investigation is necessary.

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This research explored the effects of social interaction training with a collaborative puzzle task on children of foreign nationals with ADHD in Japan. The collaborative puzzle task was designed to minimize the need to use language and to require cooperation with another person. The task involved the executive function that is considered to control a variety of goal-directed behaviors in everyday life. An intervention was carried out for two elementary school students of foreign nationals with ADHD twice a week for two months. The results showed that the intervention enhanced cooperative behavior and reduced the impulsive wandering behavior of children. However, it did not improve the performance of the traditional executive function tasks that reflect competence in cognitive and attentional control. The current findings indicate that the collaborative puzzle task enables children with ADHD to train the "hot" executive function that is important for control of emotional and motivational reactivity in social situations, and which is distinct from the "cool" executive function related more to cognitive and attentional regulation

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The present study examined how the mother of a high-functioning developmental disorder (HFPDD) child makes sense of her child care and the child's disability in her life. It also looked at the relationship between the mother's meaning of child care and the child's disability, and her recognition of the child's disability, from the perspective of new theories of grief. Narratives about the meaning of the experience of having child with HFPDD and the recognition of the disability were obtained through semi-structured interviews with 19 mothers of HFPDD children. The main findings were as follows. First, mothers were categorized into six types according to the meanings of child care and the child's disability: "growth-positivity," "ambivalence," "inactivity," "identity," "resignation," and "insensitivity." In addition, giving positive meaning to child care and the child's disability in the mother's life was related to finding significance and social value in her child and the child's disability, and to less difficulty and conflict in her conception of the child's disability.

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Two studies were conducted to analyze students' value intentions, which were conceptualized as the core of identity formation. Study 1 employed semi-structured interviews to compare 42 freshmen and 24 senior students, and Study 2 consisted of follow-up interviews with 30 of the 42 freshmen at the time of their graduation. Based on relevant episodes in each verbatim script, eight value patterns were conceptualized and constructed into three value orientations. These were reality-oriented (composed of active behavior and hedonism), self-oriented (consisting of intellect, effort and achievement, and self-conformity), and society-oriented (interpersonal relations, benevolence, and social conformity). The value pattern of interpersonal relations was salient for freshmen. Critical and empirical events that tended to undermine students' confidence in their value intentions, perception of parents' values, and religious experiences were all examined to clarify the characteristics of students' value intentions. Experiences in the university environment that contributes to establishment of the core of identity were discussed, focusing on value intentions as a dynamic and evolving system.

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This longitudinal study examined mother-infant interactions in free-play situations when infants were 9- and 12 months old. Twenty-eight pairs of 9-month old infants and their mothers were randomly assigned to one of two groups. The first group was a shared book reading condition (n = 14) in which mothers were asked to share books every day and were given picture books regularly from the time of the first observation (9 months of age) until the second observation (at 12 months). Control group mothers (n = 14) were given no instruction. The first result was that mothers' praise and children's smiling occurred more frequently in the shared book reading group than in the control group, when children were 12 months old. This suggests that mothers in the shared book reading group sensitively attuned their behaviors to children's social signals. The second finding was that children's simultaneous smiling and looking at their mothers were also more frequent in the shared book reading group than in the control group at 12 months old. This result suggests that children in the shared book reading group tended more to share emotions with their mothers.

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Positive internal characteristics and social relations have been investigated for their effects on global life satisfaction in adolescence. However, their relative importance to life satisfaction and developmental differences in their effects on life satisfaction have not been uncovered. The present study tested a model which assumed that internal characteristics and social relations were directly related to life satisfaction, and that at the same time social relations were associated with internal characteristics even after controlling for the effects of gender and parents' educational backgrounds. Responses on self-report measures by 7th grade (n = 254) and 10th grade (n = 368) students were utilized in SEM analyses. The results supported the model, and subsequent multi-group analysis showed that the relationships and degrees of association among factors were comparable between the two cohorts. One exception to this cross-age finding was that the link between family relationship and internal characteristics were significantly stronger for 7th grade students, implying that the family environment has a more important role in enhancing positive internal characteristics in early adolescence.

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Fifteen junior high school students with intellectual disabilities (<7 mental age) participated individually in an experiment in which they were given a task related to number concepts and equal distribution. The main results were as follows: (1) Number concepts of students with intellectual disabilities closely corresponded to students' mental age regardless of their chronological age. However, the way they solved problems was different from that of children without intellectual disabilities. (2) Some students had simple computational skills even though their mental ages and number concepts were both at an early childhood stage. (3) With increased mental age, children became better at the equal distribution task. (4) There was a difference in distributive strategies depending on the child's number concept. These findings suggest that children with intellectual disabilities learn informal mathematical skills in a unique way.

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In this study of children's understanding of aging, five groups (5-, 6-, 7-, and 8-year olds, and college students) predicted how 6 traits (running speed, resistance to colds, physical force, function of heart , bone strength and memory) change between the ages of 21 (young adulthood) and 80 (late adulthood). Participants answered either "It declines" or "It improves" for each trait. The results showed that: (1) children began to realize at about age five that physical functions decline with age, and at around age six they had the same level of understanding of these traits as college students; (2) while young children up to age 7 barely understood that memory declines with aging, from 8 years of age they began to show a clearer understanding; and (3) development in understanding of memory decline is related to awareness of the relationship between memory and body (or brain). Cognitive factors contributing to this understanding were discussed from the standpoint of development in naive biology and understanding of the mind-body relationship.

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This investigation concerned the normative development of social information processing (SIP) during the process of puberty. Japanese students (N = 699) from 5th to 11th grades responded to hypothetical vignettes based on SIP assessments. Hostile attributions and aggressive responses decreased between grades 5 and 11, while evoked negative emotions peaked in grade 7. Cluster analysis revealed that 4 groups were identified in terms of combination of attributions, evoked emotions, and response behaviors. As for students above grade 7, the group that displayed hostile attributions, negative emotions, and aggressive responses scored significantly lower on satisfaction than did the other groups, but there was no group difference in satisfaction with school. The results indicate that early adolescents tend to have more negative emotions toward a target person than other age groups when they suffer mild harm, even if they understand intellectually that the target person could be blameless. In addition, the data suggest that negatively distorted SIP could be related to undesirable family interactions rather than to school life.

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This study examined the relationship between assumed competence based on undervaluing others, and negative images of getting a full-time job, which influences the difficulty of career choice. University students (N=339) completed scales that measured self-esteem, assumed competence, images of getting a full-time job, and time perspective. Combining the tendency to undervalue others and level of self-esteem, we classified the participants into four competence types: omnipotence, assumption, self-esteem, and atrophy. The main results were as follows. Students who were classified as an assumption type were more likely than those classified in the self-esteem type to have a negative image of getting a full-time job, and to have a negative time perspective on experiences from the past to the future. The results imply that for the students classified as the assumption type, undervaluing of others is generalized to their negative image of getting a full-time job. In addition, their negative image of getting a full-time job plays a self-defensive role in maintaining their minimal self-evaluation.

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