In this essay, the author has summarized developmental studies on children with the Down syndrome that have been conducted by the psychologist, Yoshiko Niwa. Three books and three academic papers written by Niwa are reviewed. Niwa has repeatedly indicated that many aspects of development in children with the Down syndrome are delayed in comparison to typically developed children. Moreover, she has reported individual differences in the pace of development in children with the Down syndrome. Furthermore, she has provided data showing the importance of educational interventions on the relationship between mothers and children with the Down syndrome. These data suggest that therapists should exemplify developmental trends in such children and continuously provide advice to mothers, in order to maintain the positive development of children. Niwa has also emphasized the importance of empathetic understanding of the mothers by the therapists.

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The family drop-in system in Japan has been developed with the objective of enhancing independent child rearing in local families by providing them a place to get acquinted with each other and enhance social relationships.This system has been developed from the perspective that supporting mothers yo be independent in parenting is to support their empowerment of participants were investigated in two studies. In a pilot study, a questionnaire inquiring about empowerment that composed of 10 items was developed through interviews couducted wiht eight mothers; 4 from participants and 4 from non-participants in bonding sessions with children under 7 months of age. In the mainstudy, 53 participants and 38 non-participants with children under 7 months of age in bonding sessions responded to the qustionnaire developed in the pilot study. The comparison of the two groups suggested that the facilitation of boding was effective for invigorating empowerment in mothers, at least half ayear after beginning to use the drop-in service.

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The purpose of this research was to evaluate the nursery adaptation process of a foreign child, in order to identify psychological effects of support by a childcare staff with foreign nationality. Participant observation was performed in class for three-year olds at a nursery in Gunma Oizumi that had a childcare staff from South America. The observation was focused on a foreign child who had recently entered the nursery. The results showed that when the foreign child had a problem, or wanted to convey something, the child would seek out the staff with foreign nationality to communicate in their native language. On numerous occasions, it was observed that such actions helped calm the child. Also, the mother of the child would communicate with the staff with foreign nationality, which helped to develop a positive system of communication. These observations suggest that communication in the native language is vital to conveying individual feelings for both the foreign child and mother. It is concluded that the support by the staff with foreign nationality provided a sense of comfort for the foreign child and his mother, and has the psychological effects of promoting adaptation to the nursery environment by the child.

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In recent years, a growing number of guardians seek consultations with child-care workers on child-care. It is not uncommon, however, for child-care workers to have negative feelings about communicating with guardians. In this research, the awareness of students in child-care worker training schools about requests for consultations from guardians, and knowledge and skills that students considered to be necessary for child-care workers were investigated. Results indicated that many students lacked confidence in their ability to act as child-care consultants and depend on “experience” and “advice”. Moreover, students that lack self-confidence had less knowledge about consultating as well as narrower perspeative on their role as child-care workers. Therefore, it was considered necessary,: (1)to provide students preparing to become child-care workers with training that raises their awareness of the need to provide child-care advice to guardians, as well as (2)to provide training in social work and counseling techniques, so that students could competently provide child-care advice, without relying on “experience” and “advice”.

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The content of “abuse anxiety”, which is a recent complaint of parenting mothers was investigated. “Child Abuse Anxiety Scale” was developed based on interviews with mothers that were parenting 0-5-year-old children and the structure of abuse anxiety was identified. Abuse anxiety comprised of“abusive self-evaluated anxiety” (alpha = .91) and “abusive other-evaluated anxiety” (alpha = .91). These findings indicate that abuse anxiety might result from anxiety that arises when a mother, or another person evaluates her parenting,because of associating such evaluation with child maltreatment.

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