We prepared a program to assist in the learning of Roman characters,consisting of a chart and worksheets for unvoiced consonants,voiced consonants,Hepburn Romanization system characters(SHI,CHI,TSU,FU),and contracted syllables.This program was used to teach two children Roman characters.Child 1 achieved an average score of 65.0%.Child 2 achieved 72.5%.Commom to both cases was the discrimination training achieved when writing the Hepburn system characters"SHI,CHI,TSU,FU".One difference between the two children was that Child 1 received training on discrimination and inscription more frequently than Child 2,because Child 1's recognition of Hiragana(closely involved in phonological awareness)on the systematic table of fifty sounds(the Japanese syllabary)was lower.This result suggests the importance of the phonological awareness of the Japanese syllabary to learning Roman characters.

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We developed materials for educating children with visuo-spatial cognitive disorders using colored building blocks as the teaching tool.Three children were exposed to learning experiences using these blocks.The criteria used for evaluating the outcome of this exposure included assessment of the simultaneous processing ability(the K-ABC scale for processing),the integration of drawings(sub-category test),pattern creation,and location search.The total score for 3 items served as the spatial category score.The mean magnitude of change in each parameter was+17.33 for Simultaneous Processing,+2.00 for Integration of Drawings(a spatial category),+3.67 for Pattern Creation,+4.33 for Location Search,and+8.33 for the total spatial score. The +17.33 change in simultaneous processing as measured by the K-ABC scale suggests that the educational task used in this study contributed to improving the children's visuo-spatial cognition.Pattern Creation and Location Search were the spatial categories that improved in all 3 children,suggesting that the task affected these abilities.The task did not significantly affect their ability to integrate drawings.

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We explored a strategy to facilitate learning by a child whose major problems were clumsiness and difficulty learning,with the child's cognitive characteristics taken into account. The child was capable of reciting the names of numbers,recognizing printed numbers,writing numbers,and understanding the position of the decimal point.However the child had difficulty understanding ordinal numbers,the meaning of quantity,and comparing the sizes of numbers.The child's visuo-spatial cognition and spatial awareness were also poor.Although the child was able to judge similarities and differences among patterns to distinguish different patterns from each other,it was difficult for the child to copy or draw using tools appropriately because of poor eye-hand coordination and a poor ability to illustrate the patterns precisely. Because the child's major problem was an inability to perform division,we provided instruction to improve calculating skills.During a step-wise process,the use of visual aids was reduced progressively to facilitate more rapid calculation and the acquisition of visual images by the child.Soon after the start of the instruction program,the child showed improvement in the ability to perform the division of evenly divisible numbers(a two-digit number divided by a one-digit number).This case is reported.

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The present study was undertaken to compare the mental images triggered in adults when they viewed various symbols of verbs(normal symbols,symbols with concrete objects added,and symbols with an added line of flow).For 13 of the 15 verbs,the images evoked when viewing the normal symbols differed significantly from the images evoked when viewing the symbols with concrete objects added,and the latter symbols were scored higher.Of the 11 verbs for which the images differed significantly between the symbols with concrete objects added and the symbols with an added line of flow,the score for 8 verbs was higher for the symbols with the concrete objects added than for the symbols with an added line of flow,and the score for 3 verbs was higher for the symbols with an added line of flow. These results suggest that when discussing the information that should be added to symbols for verbs,it is desirable to take into consideration the concrete objects the words are related to,the line of flow presentation,and a three-dimensional presentation.

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[in Japanese]

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[in Japanese]

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[in Japanese]

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[in Japanese]

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[in Japanese]

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[in Japanese]

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[in Japanese]

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[in Japanese]

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