The purpose of the present study is to investigate spontaneous behaviors and the extent of their commonness and difference to be found among profoundly retarded children. The subjects were eighty ambulatory children to be served in an institution and were divided into four groups at the level of developmental age (DA): Group 1 in the DA 0:7-0:10 range, Group 2, 0:11-1:2, Group 3, 1:3-1:6, and Group 4, 1:7-1:10. The observation was made under four conditions: the interior of a house with an adult (the condition a), the interior of a house with no adult (the condition b), the exterior of a house with an adult (the condition c), and the exterior of a house with no adult (the conditon d). The time for the observation was ten minutes in each condition and the check was made twenty times every thirty seconds. Behaviors exhibited in each group were categorized into seven items. More than half of behaviors occured in Group 1 was sensorimotor behavior. Even in Group 4 the behavior was little related to objects or human in terms of the rate of occurrence, behaviors related to external world increased, though. It was revealed that regardless of the condition the behaviors of the first and/or the second ranking in the rate of occurrence were statistically high in all the conditions except the behavior of Group 3 under the condition b. It was also found that as a whole the behavior showed indoors was significantly more complex and variable than that of outdoors. Coefficients of rank correlation between groups, within groups, and between individuals were computed. Between groups there was no correlation to be found. Within groups Group 1 was significantly high in correlation of all the conditions. In Group 2 no correlation was found. In Group 3 correlation coefficient revealed high relationships between behaviors under the condition b and c, b and d, and c and d. Significant correlation between Group 4' s behaviors under the condition a and b, and c and d was also found. The results showed that the spontaneous behavior took place in Group 1 had little relation to situations. But behaviors being affected by external conditions increased as the DA increased: the behavior of Group 3 was affected by human and Group 4, by physical situation. Between individuals there was little correlation to be found in all the groups so that it was confirmed that individual differences were great even among pro foundly retarded children.

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The education of the profoundly and multiply handicapped children has offered, more and more, many and difficult tasks to solve in this country. If we adapt the usual principle of 'school education' to their education, we can't find the solution to it. Schools for the idiot in the U.S. were established for considerably profoundly handicapped children about the middle of the nineteenth century, and gradually turned from their early educational school to custodial asylum. This process of establishment and development of these schools is very interesting. In this paper as the first step, the process of introducing education of the idiot in the U. S. before 1845 is disscussed to reexamine common opinion on the process of establishment of school for the idiot. Here, the following results are confirmed. 1) The remark that insanity is curable disease separated the idiot, incurablepatient, from the insane, who were both poor or pauper. 2) Clinical observation in the hospital for the insane differentiated the idiot of his own from the insane. 3) Therefore the idiot was dismissed from the hospital to aim at cure of the insane. 4) Instituions for the deaf and dumb, and the blind tried to educate some mild idiots to some degree, but they were dismissed from these institutions, for they were never considered as subject to care of themselves. So that educaion for them might not introduce the school for the idiot. 5) Information on education of the idiot from Europe attracted powerfully many physicians of the hospital for the insane, who had elements to react to the information. 6) In this period, image of the idiot and education of him was most obscure.

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The purpose of this study is to discuss the process that an almost non-speaking cerebral palsied child has been increased the variety of articulations by means of operant conditioning procedures and the muscle relaxation training. The case was a twelve years old girl who was able to understand instructions and to imitate actions to some extent. Only four verbalizations were, however, reported; "a" "o" "hai" "haiku". She was in non-speaking, seemingly due to high tension and poor control of her speech and utterance organs. In order to make up her speech, muscle relaxation training and operant conditioning were introduced. Muscle training were constructed as follows; relaxation of her shoulder, neck and breast, and then controlling with breathing and with movement of tongue, lower jaw, etc. Verbal praise or encouragement and token were used as the reinforcer on the process of operant conditioning. On its treatment, the training process was followed on the basis of the developmental steps of normal children. The 19 training sessions have been done for 8 months in individual setting. The results were demonstrated that she learnt the relaxation of her shoulder, neck and breast, and was able to have effective utterance for speech. She has also been able to control tongue and lower jaw, and has acquired 31 kinds of sounds and 20 words, including "mama" "papa", etc. These results are discussed with following three points. 1) The effect and problem of reinforcer: It was apparent that token and social reinforcement activated her motivation for training. Another reason to increase her motivation appears to be that her possible articulation sound was connected with the word, as possible. It also seemed to be efficient and effective that her family worked as a mediator to learn her speech with picture card and repeating the words which had learned in the training sessions, particularly in the early stage of learning. 2) The effect of muscle relaxation training: It is seemed that the relaxation of her shoulder, neck and breast promoted control of breathing, and then became to set an adequate posture for verbalization. Controlling of tongue was able to product many sounds in the first step. It is necessary, however, to control lower jaw in order to connect some plural sounds with to make some words up. 3) The acquisition order of the articulations in vowels and consonants: The training were based on the developmental steps of normal children. It is necessary, however, to take into account of disturbed parts of the subject.

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This study aims to have a better understanding of the relationships between the life condition of the mentally retarded adults and the historical socio-economic background in a fishing village. To describe the life condition of the retarded, various kinds of information about their vocational adjustment and the social acceptability by their own families and other people in the community, were collected through the author's interview with their family-members and other villagers. The informations about the historical socio-economic background of the community were also gathered from the relevant officers and villagers. This is a small fishing village locating in Central Japan on the Pacific beach. The number of households is some 370. Up to 1959 when a new local railway was opened to trafic, this village had been isolated from other regions and formed a closed society, and almost of all households and their members had engaged in ocean, coast and inshore fishing. The population decreased from 1,687 in 1960 to 1,394 in 1970, thereafter there has been no observable decrease. The population engaged in fishing has also decreased, some 62% of all families, however, have their members working in a fishing industry at present. The cousins marriage was historically a matter of normal occurence. Only three family-names account for 90% of all households. Therefore almost all villagers are relatives with one another. Nine male and 5 female retarded adults were detected here. In this paper, mental retardation refers only to subaverage general intellectual functioning. Of 2 males whose level of retardation are estimated to be moderate or severe, one is engaged in ocean fishery and gains the full rate of income to support his wife and daughter as well as himself, and the other is employed in coastal fishery and evaluated by the villagers as doing one man's work or more. Other 7 males are estimated as being mildly retarded. Except one who was fired out because of his drinking babit, 6 among them have jobs of which 5 are working on the sea. Five have been married. Three cases of female whose level of retardation are estimated to be moderate or below have been unemployed and unmarried. One of them has a illegitimate daughter who got married to a native lad and has supported her mother. Other 2 females are supported by their brosher's families. Two females who are mildly retarded are housewives of retarded males. The owners and the captains of ships and other villagers say; "One can be a fisherman if he can only get and carry fishes", and also, "It is a customary practice that the member of a fishing boat can get the full rate of income without an apprentice, even if he is a mentally retarded person and can not do his full share". Concerning marriage of the retarded, villagers say that like marries like. They often tend to marry other handicapped people. It is traditionally said in the village that the mentally retarded bring wealth to their families. Therefore, the retarded adults in this village, particularly the males seem to be in a good condition for vocational adjustment as well as social acceptance. The possible factors in the historical socioeconomic background behind the good life condition of the retarded appear to be related to; 1) the job environment of fishing, the simplicity of fishing skills, the kinship with one another on the job, the fact that the old rule of equal profit-sharing has remained in force and the educationally advantageous circumstances of fishing, and 2) the good social acceptance and very close human relations in the village, due to the fact that the most of the villagers are related with one another by blood, have a similar life-style, have common interests in the household economy and have had social intercourse on ceremonial occasions and in their daily lives for more than one hundred years, and, the family system supporti

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