The purpose of this study was to investigate the visual field (VF) differences of hiragana, kanji and figure processing for normal children (NC) and mentally retarded children (MR). The subjects were 20 NC (MA=7,9, 11:10 males and 10 females) and 12 MR (MA=7, 9:4 males and 8 females). All showed right hand preference. The stimuli were hiragana (われくへ), kanji (山本大小) and figures (○ △ □ 〓). The subjects had to report both the number (2〜9) which was presented at the fixation point and either the letter or the figure which was presented on the right side or the left side of the screen. The exposure time for each task was determined for each subject during the practice session by attaining a performance level of about 70% correct responses. In both NC and MR, the mean exposure time of MA7 years was significantly longer than that of other MA years. In MR, the mean exposure time of Down's syndrome children was significantly longer than that of non-Down's syndrome children. NC showed RVF superiority for the hiragana task (t=3.65, df=3.8, p<0.001), but no VF differences for the kanji task and the figure task. For the hiragana task of NC, MA9 years showed RVF superiority (t=2.74, df=5, p<0.05) and both MA7 years and MA11 years showed an RVF advantage. NC-males showed RVF superiority (t=3.79, df=9, p<0.01), but NC-females showed a RVF advantage. On the other hand, MR showed LVF superiority both for the kanji task (t=1.63, df=20, 0.10<p<0.20) and for the figure task (t=1.98, df=24, 0.05<p<0.10), but not for the hiragana task. Thus, it is possible that the extent of hemispheric specialization of NC-males is greater than that of NC-females, or NC-females are processing the hiragana task more easily than NC-males. In addition, it seems that the extent of hemispheric specialization for verbal processing of MR is smaller than that of NC or that MR process stimuli by visiospatial strategy, and while NC process them by verbal strategy.

View full abstract

There are some hearing impaired person whose hearing threshold level deteriorate on the aided ear, hearing aid usage ear and restore on the unaided ear, hearing-aid rest ear. Authors named such a phenomenon a reversible threshold shift with hearing-aid use. The purpose of this study was to investigate the deterioration and restration process of hearing acuity in the sensori-neural hearing impaired wearing hearing-aids and to discuss its relationship with the type of his hearing threshold shift and the acoustic frequency response of his hearing aids. Subject was a graduate student whose average hearing-threshold level was 80dB at 1,000Hz (better ear). He was provided the formation of language and speech by the acoustic method at preschool period. His speech discrimination score was 100% at 100dB (HL: JIS T1201) in 67 Japan Audiological Society Syllabic List. He has telephoned to a person with his personal hearing-aid and can comprehend conventional speech very well. His wearing hearing aid was a behind-the-ear type and its maximum power output was 136dB (SPL). Acoustic gain for input 70dB (SPL) at 300-4,000Hz was 42dB (SPL). The results were as follows: (1) The occurence of threshold shift due to hearing-aid usage was observed in a frequency range of 500-2,000Hz. It was of the typical valley type. (2) Deterioration of eharing threshold was less than 20dB when acoustic gain was held constant. (3) In the relation between deterioration process and restoration process of hearing threshold the restration rate of hearing acuity was was slower than the deterioration rate. Two weeks were needed after putting off the hearing aid for hearing threshold to be restored. (4) The deterioration range of hearing threshold was related to the acoustic features of frequency response with hearing-aids.

View full abstract

The purpose of this study was (1) to explore the communality and clearness of scale items with a social desirability scale value (SDSV) of attitudes toward the visually handicapped and (2) to examine the relationships between different groups and salient dimensions of social desirability (e.g., generalized rejection, special ability, etc.). The subjects were divided into four groups: students majoring in special education, students majoring in regular education, teachers of blind children and teachers of sighted children. The subjects were requested to rate each item on a 7-point social desirability scale. The mean rating assigned to an item was regarded as SDSV. The following analyses of SDSVs were carried out. At first, we attempted to compare correlations between the SDSVs based on the judgments of different groups. As a result, most of correlation coefficients were nearly 0.90. But the correlations between the SDSVs of the students majoring in special education with those of the students majoring in regular education, and of the teachers of sighted children were relatively low. These results indicated that these low correlations might be caused by the degree of contact with or knowledge about blind persons the subjects had. Therefore, the data did not support the communality of the SDSVs. Next, the frequency distributions of SDSVs were made in order to examine the clearness of judgments in different groups. The distributions were nearly bimodal in shape for both the students majoring in special education and the teachers of blind children, but were unimodal in shape for both the students majoring in regular education and the teachers of sighted children. These findings suggest that the judgments of SDSVs were not clear especially in the latter groups. Therefore, the data did not support the clearness of the SDSVs. Finally, we attempted to examine the relationships between different groups and dimensions of social desirability by a 4x5 (group X dimension) analysis of variance. There were statistically significant differences in groups, dimensions, and interactions. The cleatness of the SDSVs based on the judgments of a group on each dimension was similar to that of the distribution shown by the same group. Dimentional structures in different groups were identical except for a dimension of integrated education. In conclusion, it is necessary to enlighten the public to understand the social problem of blind persons. Additionally, it is important that we should make efforts to reach mutual consensus in relation to the social attitudes toward the visually handicapped. Thereby, we could find the key to solve various problems.

View full abstract

It is generally known that articulatory speech disorders are one of the most conspicuous features of children with Down's syndrome. Previous studies on these children pointed out organic anomalies affecting speech articulation as well as their weaker articulatory skill. As the IQ of these children is generally below 50, their articulatory disorders may also be considered to be a consequence of their retarded mental development. But so far there are very few studies giving a concrete description of these disorders. The aim of the present study is then to describe the disorders observed in articulatory test situations. The test material consisted of 100 separate Japanese syllables. The subjects were 60 children with Down's syndrome (ages 6 through 18), either pupils in schools for mentally retarded children or in ordinary schools, situated in Mie and Aichi Prefectures. The test procedure was as follows : To get the subjects to articulate the syllables, the experimenter articulated every syllable, pointing to the appropriate character in a table of 100 syllables at the same time. The subject was then asked to articulate it twice. Those articulation were tape-recorded, and three listeners, i.e. the present authors, judged if they were correct or not. The results obtained are summarized as follows :-Disorders of articulation were observed in 98.3% of the subjects with Down's syndrome. This rate is much higher than that reported for normal or mentally retarded children in general. This suggests that their disorders of articulation should be explained in terms of their particular anomaly, e.g. the organic one, as well as in terms of their retarded mental development. -The details of disorders are different from one subject to another, but as a general tendency it was observed that the test scores of the older subjects were greater than that of the younger ones. There was no difference seen between boys and girls. -The mean score for all syllables was 50.8, which was relatively low, and the range was 13-80, which was very wide. -Syllables with high scores were those with single unvoiced consonants, while those with low scores were for the most part those with a consonant followed by palatal semi-vowel (yoon). Further we obtained results which suggest that Down's syndrome children acquire the latter syllables later than normal children. -Apart from the consonantal complexes of palatal semi-vowels, consonants with high scores were w, t, k, m, j, n, p, b, and those with low scores were dz, dз, and r. -Flapped consonants (coresponding to the consonant in the syllables ra, ri, ru, re, ro,) and the affricates which depend on the manner of articulation had low scores. -Dental sounds which depend on the point of articulation had low scores.

View full abstract

The examination of typical and atypical cases of infantile autism for which intensive follow-up studies have been performed over a long period of time should be of value for the study of autism. This is a report on an unusual case of autism with obvious cerebral organic signs observed from infancy to 24 years of age. The neuro-and psychopathological findings of this case are as follows; 1) Clinical seizures which began at 7 months of age, have been under complete control by anticonvulsants since 6 years of age. 2) The EEG always revealed spike-and-slow-wave complexes and slow dysrrhythmia in basic activity but showed no clear-cut evidence of focal sign. CT scanning, however, revealed high-density foci in a deep site of the left temporal lobe. 3) A correlation between the clinical seizures and the foci in the deep site of the left temporal lobe remains unknown and the possibility of temporal-lobe epilepsy of this case was not substantiated because the clinical seizure pattern and the EEG pattern of abnormality do not match well with the definition. 4) A survey of the literature on the correlation between the neuropathological findings and clinical courses of infantile autism such as a refraction of early developmental pattern and/or chronically schizophrenia-like state from puberty to the present time was made, from which no understandable conclusion was obtained. 5) Such behaviors as mood-lability and impulsive violence in early school years in this case appeared similar to the behavior-pattern of Strauss syndrome. Therefore the possibility of a partial continuity of the clinical pictures of infantile autism and of Strauss syndrome was proposed. 6) We noted some unusual characteristics of this case for infantile autism; the lack of echolalia and of delayed echolalia with the presence of a severe degree of repetitiveness and of delayed violence. 7) A mild degree of mental retardation was found (IQ 59, WISC) at best, but that is far below the score at present.

View full abstract