It has been suggested that the development of the lexical aspect of numerals is different in children with and without mental retardation. The early development of number concepts can be examined by an evaluation of equivalence relations between numeral stimuli (Arabic numerals, spoken numbers, holding up some number of fingers, or a set of objects). The present study aimed to investigate the developmental properties of the lexical aspects of numerals, and the operation of generating subsets, in children with mental retardation, through examination of equivalence within 4 triads (T1, T2, T3, and T4). T3, composed of Arabic numerals, spoken numbers, and holding up some number of fingers, reflects the lexical aspect of numeral stimuli. One of the three items in the other triads was the operation of generating subsets. Participants in the study were 39 children without disabilities (CA 3:6-5:6), and 36 children with mental retardation (CA 7:3-15:3, MA 3:0-5:8). The results were as follows: (1) In 3-year-old children without disabilities, for the numbers 1-3, T1 (composed of spoken numerals, holding up fingers, and a set of objects) was the most frequently observed triad, compared to the other triads. For the numbers 4-9, T3 was the most frequently observed triad in 4-year-old children without disabilities. It was inferred that in children without disabilities, equivalence relationships tend to develop within a triad that includes the operation of generating subsets. (2) In children with mental retardation whose MAs were 3 years, T3 was the most frequently observed triad for the numbers 1-5. These results indicate that, in children with mental retardation, equivalence relationships within the lexical aspects of numeral stimuli appear at an early stage of the development of number concepts. (3) Existence of a leading triad during the early development of equivalence within numeral stimuli indicates that stimulus equivalence might contribute to the early development of number concepts in all children, those with and those without mental retardation.

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The purpose of the present study was to examine effects of Dohsa training on the standing posture of a child with cerebral palsy. The child, who was 8 years 11 months old at the beginning of the present study, could walk alone, but tended to fall down. Over 4 years, she had 135 Dohsa training sessions. Based on the training tasks, the Dohsa training process was divided into 4 phases. As an index of body control, body sway was induced by flows of optical array, using a tilting room; it was measured 3 times by a force plate. The following indices indicated improved control of her body after the training: (1) observations during training sessions, such as improved standing posture; (2) reports from parents and the girl herself, such as that she rarely fell down; (3) decrease in body sway and "Fumisime" area as the subject's standing ability, indicating that the controllable area had grown larger; and (4) decreased effect on body sway from the flows of optical array at the second and third measurements, compared to the first. These findings suggest that change of action through Dohsa training affects the perception of affordance.

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Compound syllables in Japanese, called "yoon," are written with 2 kana characters, one of which is the same size as the other characters in the material, and the other of which is a small character. When yoon are pronounced, the high front vowel of the first character is omitted, and a semivowel and vowel of the second character is added. For example, /ki/+/ja/ becomes /kja/. The present study investigated whether awareness of phonemes and comprehension of the blending of sounds are requisites for the acquisition of reading and writing yoon scripts. To test the former, a 7-year-old child with delayed language development who read and wrote all of the basic kana characters but could not do yoon scripts was trained on a sound categorization task. However, he failed to learn. Then, to test the latter, the boy was trained with a task that required that yon words be segmented into syllables and then letters matched to the syllables. It was found that the child learned to read yoon scripts in the same session in which he understood the blending of sounds, and that he could also write yoon syllables correctly in a follow-up session. Thus, it was concluded that awareness of phonemes is not always necessary for the acquisition of reading and writing yoon scripts, but that comprehension of blending of sounds is.

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The present study evaluated a toileting management procedure with the purpose of establishing in-toilet urinating by a 3-year-old boy with pervasive developmental disorder. The procedure was based on a functional assessment, and was taught through intensive home-delivery support. After a functional assessment of the child's pre-support behavior, a support plan was developed, and informed consent was obtained from his parents. Then, procedures based on the support plan were implemented by staff and the parents. Over the management-support phase (12 days), the interval between toileting trials was gradually extended on a regular schedule from 20 to 50 minutes. Then, over the management-maintenance phrase (1 month), the mean interval between toileting trials was extended to 140 minutes on an irregular schedule, and self-initiated toileting was observed. The post-support satisfaction score by the parents was very high. The results are discussed in terms of developing methods to transmit the support procedure more effectively to family members through home delivery support.

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The results of the present research revealed 2 different views of visual information processing. On the one hand, when the autistic and non-autistic groups were compared in terms of their percentages of correct answers on behavioral indices-the Discriminative Response Task (DRT) and response time, no significant difference was found in terms of their visual information processing. On the other hand, a slight but significant difference between the 2 groups was found in the Event-Related Brain Potential (ERP) Index, especially in the N_A potential index. This experiment demonstrated that information processing via the Simultaneous Condition and the S1 (first stimulus) Successive Condition was much faster for the autistic group than the other group. However, in contrast, under the S2 (second stimulus) Successive Condition, there was much slower information processing. Nonetheless, the results of the present research suggest that the visual dominance in the autistic group was due to the differences in the types of stimuli presented.

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The purpose of the present study was to clarify the legibility of Japanese Braille, and examine the factors that affect legibility. 19 skilled Braille readers from a high school and universities participated. The experiment was designed to simulate natural conditions: the participants' task was to use active touch to read Braille material presented in random alignment. Reading time for 43 Braille characters was measured. Each Braille character was read very fast, but there were significant differences in reading time among the characters. In other words, the legibility of Japanese Braille varies across characters. In terms of the physical characteristics of the Braille cells, the number of dots in the cell affected the legibility of that cell; the outline shape of the dots, their texture, and their location were not, on the whole, redundant cues. Analysis in terms of each character's rank order showed that it was likely that physical cues had an effect on legibility.

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The main purpose of the present study was to investigate the development of young children's comprehension of the conceptual symbols on the Japanese version of the Pictogram Ideogram Communication (PIC-J). Ninety-three male and one hundred thirteen female infants and young children without disabilities, between the ages of 1 year 6 months and 4 years 11 months, participated in the present survey. Children were tested individually if they could point to the correct symbol after the tester named one of the symbols presented with 4 other pictograms. The 60 symbols used in the present study belonged to 3 different grammatical categories. It was found that nouns were the easiest to point to correctly. In contrast, adjective-adverb symbols were the most difficult for the children to identify. It was suggested that using simpler and more concrete words might facilitate the comprehension of some abstract symbols.

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The present study compared parents of children and youth with and without disabilities in terms of their awareness of their sons' and daughters' use of their spare time. Parents of children and youth without disabilities have the opinion that spare time should be spent on activities that the family enjoys together. Although these parents are anxious about a possible decline in their sons' and daughters' scholastic performance as a consequence of the recent introduction of the 5-day school week, they have little dissatisfaction with their sons' and daughters' use of their spare time. Compared to the degree of their anxiety about the scholastic decline, their concern about the 5-day week is low, and they rarely insist that the school and community do something about their sons' and daughters' use of their leisure time. In contrast, parents of children and youth with disabilities believe that the school and community should have some educational concern about their sons' and daughters' use of their spare time, and should consider how it could be used to benefit them. They are relatively dissatisfied with their sons' and daughters' spare time activities, and have more expectations for the role of the school and community than do parents of children and youth without disabilities. Considering the differences found in the present study between these 2 groups of parents, it was discussed how young people's spare time should be appropriately spent when a 5-day school week system is fully implemented.

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