The physical conditions for superimposing characters on a TV screen, such as the number of characters and the length of display time, must be flexible in accordance with the program and the audience. The NHK public television teletext service for the hearing impaired started last year displays summarized wording of sentences in accordance with screen space limitations and other technical restrictions. Since complete speech and narrative captions do not restrict information output, they can reflect more accurately the meaning of the original program and match captions with lip movement. This method is thus more appropriate for the post-lingually deafened. There are also great benefits in superimposing captions automatically. To more fully evaluate the possibilities and effects of superimposing complete speech and narrative captions, we investigated the following three areas: 1) the design and development of a new, speedy, easily-handled caption superimposing device different from the telop-card system, 2) mathematical limitations, such as character number and time length, and 3) the effects of superimposing complete speech and narrative captions. The principal results were as follows: 1. We created a new interface capable of representing word processor output using a commercially available Japanese language word processor and video equipment. We found that this method requires only one tenth the time required by the old systems. 2. Although the number of characters and length of display time vary in accordance with the type of program, such as drama, documentary, etc., the maximum number of characters per picture differs comparatively little with programs. We believe that by superimposing at a maximum rate of 4.8 characters per picture it will be possible to superimpose complete speech and narrative captions. We chose the popular serialized television drama "Oshin" as a suitable program for testing the superimposition of complete speech and narrative captions with the superimposing device which we developed. 3. We showed the drama "Oshin" to 20 deaf students studying dental technology at the school for the deaf affiliated with the University of Tsukuba. The following procedure was used: 1) Non-captioned video (the same as that broadcast for the hearing) was shown to all the students. 2) Students were divided into two groups. One was shown summarized captions; the other was shown complete speech and narrative captions. After seeing the video, the students in each group were requested to describe the events of the drama they had been shown. The results of the two groups were compared, and it was found that the comprehension of those shown the fully captioned drama exceeded that of the group shown summarized captions.

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A 6-years-old elementary school girl, electively mute, was treated by a stimulus fading procedure and social speech skills training. Mutistic responses appeared in all social settings, especially in school. In her home, furthermore, the girl also showed some difficulty in fluent speech interaction at home with her family and others in her home seemingly due to mild speech retardation. The goal of the treatment was to get her to respond verbally using training in speech skills with the homeroom teacher and classmates in school. The treatment procedures were as follows: 1) Making her verbal interactions with the therapists at her home. 2) Making her the social speech skills which are needed in social settings and school life through the training at her home by means of operant procedures. 3) After achieving fundamental speech skills at home, introducing these skills gradually from the home area to the school setting by means of a stimulus fading procedure. 4) Measuring her tention levels (using the check list for measuring tentions of her speech, action, and face; KATOH et al. 1981) in various areas of her school. 5) Arranging a hierarchy of her mutistic responses on the basis of situation, person, and time factors. 6) Dividing the fading steps into 20 by means of the hierarchy. 7) Desensitizing of her tension and making verbal responses with the social speech skills training, according to the fading steps. 24 sessions were needed up to arrive at items of verbal interaction with the homeroom teacher in her classroom. It was shown on the one month later follow-up that the girl has not only continued to perform well on training items, but has also become more active on other verbal responses in her regular classroom. The results mentioned above suggest that the shaping of verbal responses and reducing tensions in the school situation are achieved not only by a stimulus fading procedure, but also by operant training of social speech skills.

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The purpose of this paper is to investigate how much perinatal complications affect later mental development in low birth weight infants. The items of perinatal complications followed in this study were as follows: (1) maternal conditions - toxemia of pregnancy, (2) neonatal conditions - neonatal jaundice, birth asphyxia and giant baby, and (3) conditions of delivery - cesarean section, vacuum extraction, use of forceps, coiling of the umbilical cord and premature sac rupture. 976 children were divided into four groups based on birth weight (low birth weight or regular weight) and perinatal problems (presence or absence of perinatal complications). Each child took a developmental test or intelligence test at three years of age. The main results were as follows: 1) 27 (31 per cent) of 88 subjects in the low birth weight group and 168 (19 per cent) out of 888 subjects in the regular weight group had other complications in the perinatal period. The incidence of perinatal complications was high in the low birth weight group. 2) The low birth weight group with perinatal problems (LH group) was found to have significantly lower developmental indices and a higher incidence of mental retardation or delayed language development than the regular weight group without perinatal problems. There were no significant differences between the LH group and the low birth weight group without perinatal problems or between the LH group and the regular weight group with perinatal problems. 3) The developmental prognosis of subjects in the LH group was poor in the subjects with birth asphyxia or neonatal jaundice. This trend was marked in subjects who had more than two perinatal complications including birth asphyxia or neonatal jaundice. These results show the important effect perinatal complications have on later development in low birth weight infants.

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This article analyzes the developmental process of how deaf children with heavy impediments in linguistic performance change from a preoperational level to an operational level when they are given some perspective tasks to solve, and clarifies the characteristics of the recognition ability of deaf children. The subjects were 28 deaf children and 38 hearing children, aged 6, 8, 10, and 12. The IQ of the subjects was over 95 on the non-verbal intelligence test of the S.O.N. The deaf children had an above average hearing level of 95 dB in the good ear. The results obtained were as follows. 1. Both deaf and hearing children reached over 70% of achievement in the test after 10 years of age. 2. The subjects achieved over 70% performance on the perspective task when they were in the preoperational period, but only 70% performance level was achieved during the operational period. 3. Deaf and hearing children showed almost the same level of the performance in the perception task but deaf children were inferior to hearing children in conceptual tasks at the age of 8. 4. Deaf children were inferior to hearing children at the age of 8 on the performance of distinction of positions, when they turned 90゜ and 270゜ to the right. 5. It is obvious that deaf children in the preoperational period have different strategies than hearing children. The results of this study show that deaf children with a heavy impediment in linguistic deficiency at the operational level compared to hearing children can improve from the preoperational level to the operational level through the solution of tasks.

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In this paper the writer has tried to ascertain how motor disability was perceived in the late Edo period using four texts of European medicine which were published in the same period. The analysis of these texts revealed the following: 1) the method of "mono ni tadasu" (That is, empirical verification using physical body) which was described in "Kaitai shinsho" (1774). 2) the presentation of concepts of "jinshin" (the human body) "kokan" (sympathy) and "shizen ryono" (natural cure) in "Byogaku tsuron" (1844). 3) the essays on "sekizui mahi" (spinalparalyse) in "Satsubyo kikan" and "Fushi keiken ikun" (1857-1861). On the basis of these analyses the writer has discussed the perception of motor disability incurred by spinal paralysis as follows: 1) "Sekizui mahi" was understood from the view of physiology and anatomy. 2) It was described as a case of "kyokusho mahi" (localparalyse) and a kind of "mahi byo" (paralytic disease). 3) The causes of its motor disability were regarded as being a sympathetic dysfunction. 4) Treatment emphasized physical and spiritual stimulation in accordance with the human view that in time any diseased organ can recover by natural process. The historical significance of European texts was to pave the way for this treatment which evolved from the method of "mono ni tadasu".

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Trends in research on disabled persons were analyzed from an educational data base using a computer. The "Current Index to Journals in Education" (CIJE) from the ERIC data base in the USA has been covering more than 750 journals on 293,600 topics over the past 15 years (1969-1983). Twenty keywords, descriptors of disabled persons, were selected from the ERIC thesaurus (i.e. on disabilities and narrower terms of disabilities). CIJE was searched using these 20 descriptors and 16,747 records were found and analyzed. The following major results were found. 1) The frequency of descriptors changed in the research field over 15 years. 2) A correlation matrix and cluster analysis of the frequency of descriptors showed three divisions over the 15 years (1969-1975, 1976-1979 and 1980-1983). 3) A cluster analysis of the descriptors in each period showed that the content of the first and second periods were similar but that of the third period was different from the other two.

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