The purpose of this study was to clarify the developmental process as a result of which children come to regulate their actions in relation to specified tempos. Forty-four children without disabilities (MAs from 3 to 6 years) and 44 children with mental retardation (MAs from 3 to 6 years) were instructed to synchronize their clapping and stepping with two specified tempos. The tempos were decided for each subject on the basis of that child's personal tempo. The personal tempo was measured from the child's clapping and stepping. Children with autism or Down syndrome were not included in the sample of children with mental retardation. The results were as follows: 1. Each subject was found to have a particular personal tempo. 2. The ability to synchronize actions with specified tempos improved with increasing mental age. 3. Remarkable progress was found between MA 3 and 4 years, and between MA 5 and 6 years. 4. Improvement in the ability of the subjects with mental retardation was not related to chronological age, but was closely related to mental age. 5. The ability to synchronize with specified tempos by clapping the hands was acquired at MA 6 years, and by stepping, above MA 7 years.

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The purpose of this study is to clarify what the actual practices were during the Taisho Era (1912-1926) in relation to having students repeat grades in school, and the relation between problems associated with repeating grades and the establishment of special classes for students who are underachieving. Specifically, this article reports a case study of one school, U Elementary School in Niigata prefecture. In this school, a special class for children who were called "rettoji" was established in 1923. This school was listed in the Ministry of Education's 1924 report "The National Status of Special Education". At U Elementary School, the old school registers have been preserved, and it was possible to locate in them the names of many students who had repeated grades. We analyzed the contents of these registers to clarify how the practice of having students repeat grades was actually used during that period, and investigated the relationship between problems related to repeating grades and establishment of the special class. The results were as follows; 1. Many students repeated grades in the first decade of the Taisho Era (1912-1921) at this school. 2. The grade most commonly repeated was the first grade; next most common were fifth and sixth grades. Almost all students who repeated lower grades were later promoted to the higher grades, but many students in the higher grades later left school. 3. Some children were exempted from school education during the year in which they were repeating a grades. Many of these children were underachievers because of having an intellectual disability. 4. Arithmetic was the most difficult subject for the students who repeated grades. But the criteria used to decide whether a student would repeat a grade were the average of the student's marks in all subjects, the mark in deportment, and the rate of absenteeism. 5. Problems of low achievement, which were behind the many students who repeated grades at this school, were mainly caused by the poor educational conditions of this school and the living conditions of the children in this district. 6. In 1923, a special class was established at this school to deal with the problems of low achievement. 7. When the special class was established, the criteria used to decide whether a student would repeat a grade were changed. Generally speaking, at the end of the Taisho Era (in the mid-1920s), there was an attempt to educate children according to their ability. Consequently, the criteria used to decide whether a student would repeat a grade were changed, and the number of students who repeated grades decreased.

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The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of the number of characters in and the length of display time of television captions on the comperhension of the television programs. Seventy-nine deaf students in junior and senior high schools for the deaf were presented with three kinds of captioned television peograms,such as drama, documentary, and scientific experiments. Two types of superimposed captions were used for each television program, varying in numder of characters. In one, all the characters of the speech and narration were included; in the other, a summary of the speech and narration was superimposed. The video material for each television program was presented at one of three durationa of display time…normal speed, normal speed×2/3, and normal speed×1/2…with each of these two different type of captions. After they viewd the video materials, the students were administered tests of comprehension. From the results, it was concluded that the physical parameters for superimposed captions on a television screen, such as the number of characters displayed and the length of display time, must be flexible, in accordance with the nature of the program and the viewers.

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Children's self-cognition is related to their parents' cognition of some aspects of the children, and to their parents' care and hopes for the children's aims in life. The present study investigated the cognitions of parents of physically weak children, differences between the parents and their children in the cognition of the children's health, and factors related to those differences. A broad definition of physically weak children was used; data were analyzed for those parents who felt that their children were weak. Parents of fifth-year elementary school children in Osaka and Wakayama City completed questionnaires. Data were usable from 681 parents of male children and 668 parents of female children, for a total of 1349 respondents. The questionnaire includes the following measures: the parents' evaluation of the condition of the children's health (11 items), the parents' concerns about the children and their attitude toward the children's health (10 items), the parents' cognition of the children's ability (12 items), and the parents' hopes for their children's aims in life (12 items). The main results were as follows: 1. Parents' cognition of their children's abilities greatly influenced their hopes for their children's aims in life. 2. Parents' cognition of their children's abilities depended greatly on their cognition of their children's health. 3. Parents' cognition of their children's health fell into four types, in relation to the difference between the parents' and their children's cognition of the children's health. 4. In some families, the parents felt that their children were weak, while the children considered themselves to be strong; those parents showed the most negative attitude or valuation of their children's ability and of the parents' hopes for the children's aims in life. 5. In some families, the parents felt that their children were strong, while the children considered themselves to be weak; those parents showed the most positive attitude or valuation of their children's ability and of the parents' hopes for the children's aims in life.

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In the present study, the incidental teaching method was applied to a 16-year-old mute autistic boy, in order to shape demand behavior in everyday life situations. During this "incidental teaching" period, the boy could communicate with his mother by writing messages. Following that, prerequisites for shaping demand behavior and facilitating generalization were analyzed on the basis of episodes in which demand behavior was exhibited under natural conditions. The main results are as follows: In the case of this autistic child who could not make his needs known to others, it was essential for him to develop a dependable relationship with the persons serving him. Following that, he had to learn various methods of communication (e. g., conventional gestures, giving, showing, pointing) to make his desires known. To facilitate generalization further, it was important for him to acquire the words necessary to express demand.

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This paper reports some techniques that were effective for improving articulatory performance in a teenager with Down syndrome. The subject of the present study was a 15-year-old girl with Down syndrome. She could correctly articulate one-syllable words, but she manifested articulatory errors as the number of syllables per word increased. Her misarticulations occurred most frequently with the initial sounds of words. I could not explain this in term of her poor cognition, or her inability to retain or use auditory information in short-term memory. I inferred that her deficit was due to her difficulty in programming articulatory movements. The subject received speech therapy daily for 4 months as follows: (a) Training for succesive output, with the aid of visual and sensorimotor input (for example, she was requested to arrange picture cards in order with the tones of musical instruments); (b) Training for articulation with the aid of gross motor activities (for example, she was required to read words presented by a memory drum, while clapping her hands at the same time); (c) Immediate reinforcement for correct vocal imitation during training sessions and in her daily life (for example, when she correctly imitated my voice, I provided social reinforcement immediately). After 4 months' training, the accuracy of her verbal repetitions was improved, and her speech became clearer. The improvement shown in this case suggests a possible technique of speech therapy for the articulation disorders of children with Down syndrome that are due to difficulties in motor programming.

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Recently, liaison notebooks are commonly being used in special education. In this study, the purpose and actual use of these notebooks was investigated through questionnaires sent to special schools and special classes in regular schools. Data from 1190 teachers were analyzed. The results were as follows: More than 80% of the teachers responding to the questionnaire acknowleded the importance and effectiveness of the liaison notebooks. The main purposes of these notebooks are considered to include maintaining consistency in the teaching at school and at home, giving the teachers information about the children's behavior at home, and reviewing each child's activities every day. The main subjects covered in the notebooks are what the child did or how the child seemed, what the teacher did, and what the teacher's reasons were for doing that. Thus, the liaison notebook is utilized directly for teaching, rather than just for business information. Some difficulties, however, were found in realizing these purposes and functions. One is that the teachers do not have a protected period of time during the school program in which they can write in the notebooks. Because the liaison notebooks are not part of any particular educational program, the necessary time is not usually set aside. Thus, only a limited number of children can be written about, and the contents are apt to be only a partial record. Another problem is that parents' seldom respond, in spite of teachers' endeavors to communicate with them; thus, there is a danger of one-way communication. Such a condition can lead to mutual misunderstanding. Another problem is that the teachers do not seem to use the liaison notebooks as a teaching record, in spite of the fact that many articles have pointed to this function for the notebooks. It has seemed to those authors that the notebooks must have this function, because the notebooks are usually prepared first by the teachers, and then sent to the parents. Nearly ninety per cent of teachers responding to the questionnaire use the liaison notebooks. They are always used in elementary, junior high, and senior high special schools, while they are used less often in special classes in regular schools, especially in the higher grades. As far as the type of notebook used is concerned, the general type of notebook available on the market is used most often. Daily routine check lists which are specially designed at each school are used at about one third of the special schools.

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This study was designed to determine to what degree formant transitions might differ in the speech of persons with and without hearing impairments.The samples were five vowels /v/ (/a/, /i/, /u/, /e/, /o/). The second formant transitions of the vowels /vv/ (/ia/, /ea/, /oa/, /oi/, /oe/, /oa/) were compared in the speech of three persons with normal hearing and three persons with hearing impairments.These samples were recorded and analyzed by a speech analyzing system (DANAC 7000, B&K2032, HP216, HP2671G). In the speech of the subjects with hearing impairments,the second formant transitions were sometimes reduced in frequency and range. Diminished transitions were very noticeable in the speech of the subjects with hearing impairments.The vowel target value of /i/ was typically lower in the subjects with hearing impairments, compared to those without impairments.Three vowels (/i, e, a/) had the same target frequencies in the subjects with hearing impairments.The second formant transitions may be an important factor in the naturalness of the speech of persons with hearing impairments.

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Despite the large amount of research that has been done, little is known about the causative agents involved in the relationship between short-term memory and intelligence level. Ellis (1963) characterized the earlier studies on this relationship as being structurally limited. In the 1970s, the opinion came to be popular that the short-term memory deficit in persons with mental retardation was due to a deficit of cognitive strategies, that is, control processes. In other words, it was theorized that persons with mental retardation have deficient rehearsal processes. This view, and other sources of evidence, depict individuals with retardation as being deficient in control, rather than structural processes. In the latter half of the 1970s, investigators identified strategic deficits in persons with mental retardation, and then trained them on those strategies. As a result of such strategy training, persons with mental retardation learned more accurately and efficiently. But does the strategic behavior that they have learned persist over time and generalize to new tasks in new settings? Maintenance can be achieved if there is a sufficient amount of training, but there is almost no evidence showing impressive generalization effects. In the 1980s, discussions of the basis for strategy utilization have stressed the role of the individual's knowledge about memory and regulation of memory (executive function). Such knowledge and executive function have been termed "metamemory". Investigators working in the area of strategic deficits have hypothesized that metamemory may play a critical role in strategy generalization. Several studies suggest that there are developmental increases in some aspects of knowledge about memory among persons with mental retardation. But, most of the methods developed to assess metamemorial knowledge are inappropriate for use with these individuals. The executive function occurs when the subject spontaneously changes control processes in response to a change in an information processing task. Various studies have demonstrated that, although the executive function is deficient in persons with mental retardation, it can be trained directly, in much the same way that specific strategies are trained. However, recent evidence invites reconsideration of the position that short-term memory deficits are due solely to control processes. The results of a few studies can be interpreted as evidence for structural memory deficits in persons with mental retardation.

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