In a previous study (Uemura & Niimi, 1983), we developed the scales for measuring stresses on the mothers and fathers of handicapped children of school age. The purpose of this report is to uncover the factor structure of these stress scales and also to explore changes in factor structure according to the age group of the handicapped child. The scale for mothers is made up of 33 subscales and for fathers of 31. A pair of stress scales for mothers and for fathers was administered to the parents of handicapped children of school age, and 933 mothers and 869 fathers gave valid answers. Thirty-one subscales were factor-analyzed by principal factor solution based on their replies (2 subscales for mothers were omitted as they were not for all subjects). Finally 7 psychologically significant factors for mothers and 6 factors for fathers were found after varimax rotation. Many factors of both parents corresponded to each other, but the factors of fathers were generally more complex and undifferentiated than those of mothers. The factors named were as follows: (Factors of Mothers) F I: Maladaptive Behavior and Family Daily Life, F II: Anxiety for the Future, F III: Human Relations with her Other Children and People Outside of the Family, F IV: School Education, F V: Marital Relations, F VI: Social Resources, and F VII: Child Rearing, (Factors of Fathers) F I: Human Relations in General, F II: Present and Future, F III: Social Resources and the Community, F IV: School Education, F V: Maladaptive Behavior, and F VI: Health Condition. Next, in order to explore changes in factor structure according to the age group of the handicapped child, both samples of mothers and fathers were separated into three groups based on the school grade of their child, that is the group in the lower grades of elementary school (LG), the group in its higher grades (HG), and the group in junior high school (JH). Factor analysis was applied to each group, and the factor structures were compared with each other. The main results were as follows: 1) F IV, F V, F VI of mothers and F II, F IV, F V of fathers were revealed to be common to all three groups. 2) There was a minor change in the meaning of factors between that of LG and of the other two senior groups, but there were factors with good correspondence to F I and F III in each group of mothers. 3) F I of fathers differentiated into two factors in LG and JH, but the differentiation between those two factors was not clear or complete. It seems to be appropriate that those two factors be represented by F I. 4) F II and F VII of mothers were not differentiated from each other in LG. Present and future problems were combined together in this group. 5) F III of fathers was differentiated into two factors in LG, but they were combined in the two senior groups. 6) F VI of fathers appeared only in HG. We concluded that five factors of mothers (F I, III, IV, V, VI) and four factors of fathers (F I, II, IV, V) can be said to be common to all three groups, and other factors are revealed to change according to the age group of the child. Many of these important changes are seen between the group of lower grades and the group of higher grades of elementary school.

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This paper attempted to investigate the hypothesis that there are two developmental stages in the regulation of behavior in severely mentally retarded children and normal infants; 1) Stage One - immediating process initiates behavior, 2) Stage Two - nonverbal mediating process regulates behavior. This paper was composed of three experiments. Experiment 1 was designed to measure the rate of grasping responses. 10 normal infants and 8 severely mentally retarded children participated in this experiment. Experiment 2 was designed to follow up Experiment 1, 9 normal infants from Experiment 1 were used. Experiment 3 was designed to examine the effects of speech development on the regulation of behavior, 7 normal infants and 7 severely mentally retarded, who were supposed to have learned speech were used. Subjects were composed of two groups, 17 normal infants and 15 severely mentally retarded children. Their ages ranged from 4 to 31 months old in normal infants and from 87 to 151 months old in severely mentally retarded children. Their grasping was individually examined with experimental procedures based on the hypothetical stages of the regulation of behavior. The experimental procedures were consisted of three section. In the first section, as soon as the subjects grasped a bulb, a white light was automatically turned on. In the second section, while a red light was turned on, the white one would be turned on during the subjects' grasping. In the third section, the red light was turned on, but the white one not. The red light was turned on for 20 sec. at intervals of 20 sec. Responses were recorded with pen recorder and analyzed quantitatively. The results and discussion were as follows: 1. In the case of normal infants, the first hypothetical stage of development in the regulation of behavior was revealed from 11 to 17 months old. In most of the severely mentally retarded children, the first and second hypothetical stages appeared (Experiment 1). 2. By following up Experiment 1, it was also found that the second hypothetical stage of development in the regulation of behavior was revealed from 17 to 30 months old (Experiment 2). 3. In the case of normal infants, the second hypothetical stage of development in the regulation of behavior appeared at an age of more than 24 months. In some severely mentally retarded children the second hypothetical stage appeared (Experiment 3).

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This is a case report to show how an autistic boy (CA 6:3, MA 5:0), who could not appropriately speak about his own past experiences, learns such a skill. His verbal responses to several types of questions by a tester were analyzed in a multiple-baseline research design. The child was asked to talk about his experiences at kindergarten in the morning with the tester during a 20 minute treatment session in a clinical test-room on every Saturday afternoon. Analysis of all his verbal expressions from the developmental and behavior-analytic points of view leads to the following conclusions. (1) His verbal responses, especially correct answers, gradually increased with ups and downs in each session through the course of treatment, but they were much less than those of a normal child. (2) Improvement in his skill to speak about his past experiences appeared at first in syntax, and then in semantics after several sessions. (3) In the early stage of treatment, he got a few correct responses by saying simply "Yes" or "No" to questions. Then, good answers to "What…?" type questions soon developed. It was more difficult for him to answer questions of the type such as "Where…?", "How…?", "Which…?" and "Why…?" than to do "What…?" questions. He gave no correct answer to questions with "Who" or "When". (4) Tendencies to say nothing, to talk to himself for a long time and to repeat the same words, phrases or sentences in the conversation did not change over a half year. The generalization of the results of this study to other settings or environments where continuous treatment or supervision is difficult awaits further research.

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It has been demonstrated that the mentally retarded can acquire grammatical rules through imitation training. Since it is impossible to teach all grammatical rules through imitation training, teaching method must be constructed so that the retarded can acquire grammatical rules in actual life situation. Observational learning is a learning method which is much more similar to daily life situation than imitation training. So, if we expect the retarded to learn grammatical rules in daily life situation in addition to training situation, we should consider a learning method that would move from imitation training to observational learning, and from this stage to learning in daily life situation. The purpose of this report is to review research which refers to the acquisition of grammatical rules through observational learning in normal children and to discuss language training for the retarded from the viewpoint considered above. The review of the literature indicated that not presenting sentences independently but presenting a story consisting of sentences which involved the target grammatical rule was the decisive method for children to acquire grammatical rules through observational learning and this method with enactment was especially effective. To move language training for the retarded from imitation training to observational learning, it is important that we should interest the subject with the story. To do this, it is effective to tell interesting short stories consisting of sentences which involve grammatical rules acquired formerly through imitation training, which have referents, and to make it a custom to enjoy stories as early as possible. A procedure for moving from imitation training to observational learning was discussed but the details are open for study. To move to daily life situation from observational learning situation, it was suggested that we should set the situation which the subject would be interested and use sentences which contained target grammatical rules intentionally. This is the procedure which introduces the stage of daily life situation moving toward the situation of observational learning. Suggestions for language training were also noted: 1) We should present referents with sentences. 2) We should train comprehension before production. 3) When training a new rule which is similar to an acquired rule, we have to set the situation so as to promote comparison and discrimination. Future directions of the research are as follows; the influence of difference of observational period and of developmental level, persistence of learning, and generalization to daily life situation are the points to be discussed through the research of observational learning in the mentally retarded.

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