The present study investigates communicative and educational effects of onomatopoetic expressions uttered by teachers at special schools for children with intellectual disabilities, in relation to their educational support function, focusing especially on how educational behavior can be triggered by the semantic and phonological properties of onomatopoeia. Teachers' linguistic behavior was observed during classes in which onomatopoetic expressions were used. The observations were analyzed to determine how those utterances contributed to the practice of education. Of the 57 utterances that had been observed, 43 types of onomatopoetic phrases were selected and comprised the data for the present analysis. The onomatopoetic utterances that occurred most frequently were classified into 3 categories of educational practice. The categories were, in order of frequency, individualized instruction, encouragement, and supplementary explanation. Individualized instructions were typically uttered with a phrase of a single moraic structure, which seemed to function as a sign to tell the children what to do. Repeated encouraging utterances corresponded to children's movements, suggesting that the teachers' educational behavior interacted with the formal linguistic properties of onomatopoeia. An in-depth analysis of onomatopoeia in use may result in utterances with communicative and educational effects for children with special needs.

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In the present study, a child and a youth with developmental disabilities were given training in social and living skills, including shopping and cooking. At the start of the study, the child was 8 years 6 months old, and the youth, 17 years 9 months old. In order to promote the use and generalization of the trained skills in daily settings, their parents were requested to record their children's target behavior. The parents were also told about the usage of supporting instruments from the training. After receiving this instruction, the parents gave their children opportunities to emit the target behavior in daily settings. The shopping skill that had been trained was spontaneously used and generalized. The records of the cooking skill that had been trained revealed that an additional supporting procedure was needed. These results suggest the usefulness for promoting spontaneous use and generalization of social and living skills of supporting parents by requesting them to record their children's behavior. Assessment of the social validity of the present procedure indicated that the parents valued positively the selection of the target behavior and the procedure of recording the behavior in daily settings. Future studies should modify the supporting procedure so as to make it easier for the parents to learn the procedure.

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The present study examined the conditions and characteristics of 4 students with autism from a special education school for students with developmental disabilities who obtained jobs, in order to evaluate job supports for such students. The evaluation revealed that all the students' scores on a checklist of job practices improved with respect to communication and social skills and willingness to work, and that, a year after the start of employment, their employers evaluated 3 of the 4 students well. Through these assessments, it was possible to understand the conditions and characteristics of these youth, respond to their problems, and conduct training and provide support in order to encourage their strengths. Their willingness to work was encouraged. The individual educational supports provided, the school staff's discussion of their needs and the objectives of the support program with them and their parents, and successive meetings with the students aided the students in having a safe feeling. The career learning, training, practice, and coaching in the self-support course provided support in accord with the characteristics of people with autism. The selection of companies that accepted interns and that had an effective method for instructing them was important.

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The present study examined the use of the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) for severe inappropriate behavior, including polydipsic behavior (excessive drinking), self-injury, and stepping on feces, of a 28-year-old man with autism who was living in a rehabilitation facility for people with intellectual disabilities. After the Picture Exchange Communication System had been used to shape alternative behavior, generalization of the new behavior to his daily life was promoted. A functional assessment suggested that the man's problematic behavior had requesting and attention-getting functions. In Support Procedure I, the Picture Exchange Communication System, up to its third phase, was used in order to shape alternative behavior. This resulted in his acquisition of mand behavior using photographs. Support Procedure II examined whether the polydipsic behavior could be reduced by introducing the photographs into daily settings as discriminative stimuli for the alternative behavior. After that procedure was introduced, his polydipsic behavior decreased. Because the staffs attention necessarily had to be focused on the man whenever support was provided, it is possible that this functioned as an establishing operation, weakening the reinforcing effect of his inappropriate behavior, which had had an attention-getting function.

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The present study examined effects of video feedback on the behavior of mothers of children with autistic disabilities and their children. The video intervention was based on Reamer, Brady, and Hawkins (1998). However, 2 conditions were different from those in the Reamer et al. package: (a) the instructor was not in the home, and (b) the mothers themselves video-recorded the mother-child interactions. Participants were 3 mother-child pairs. The effects of the feedback were examined through an A-B design with follow-up. The results indicated that the video feedback had been effective for all 3 families, and that it was valid for the mothers to make the video recordings because the pictures in the video were appropriate. In addition, the mothers indicated in a questionnaire that doing the recording had not been a problem for them. Future research should combine this intervention with lectures, and examine its effectiveness for training parents in groups.

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The present study investigated effects of individualized support in a class already receiving a class-wide behavior intervention. The participant was a third-grade boy with Asperger's disorder tendencies, who generally did not remain seated during the class. As a result, his homeroom teacher had to take a lot of time to support him, detracting from the time that she could use for supporting other pupils in the class. Also, other boys tended to follow him as he walked around the room. Prior to the start of individualized positive behavior support, when a class-wide behavior intervention was introduced, the other boys no longer followed the participant. Subsequent to the introduction of the individualized support, he remained seated during the class. In addition, desirable changes in his home and school life were reported. This suggests that individualized support together with the class-wide intervention both facilitated appropriate behavior by the other pupils in the class and decreased the occurrence of the problem behavior.

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One purpose of the present paper is to clarify the history of education for children with disabilities in public schools in the United States, focusing especially on the establishment and development of special day classes and special schools, because that marked a starting point for today's education for children with disabilities in public schools. The paper discusses trends of research on this topic conducted since 1990. Special classes are currently regarded by radical inclusionists as typical of special education, which they contend is a root cause of the discrimination against and segregation of children with disabilities. However, to the contrary, special classes were intended originally to provide education that was appropriate for children with disabilities, not to exclude them from regular classes nor to segregate them apart from the other children. It is important to find out what results have been achieved by special classes, and whether they have failed to achieve the desired results, so that modern inclusive education does not repeat past mistakes. Much traditional historical research on special classes, except for general histories of education, has focused on the period immediately after their establishment. However, the purposes and realities of the original special classes are not well known, except for those in large cities such as Boston, New York, and Chicago. However, the essence, purposes, realities, results, and problems of special classes varied significantly, depending on the types of disability and classes involved, the location, and the historical period. A second purpose of the present paper, therefore, is to propose a new research method combining horizontal and vertical perspectives.

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The present article discusses, from the perspective of quality of life, the development of positive behavior support (PBS) for people with behavior problems. Articles published in the Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions from 1999 to 2008 were analyzed. From the total, 65 articles were selected and analyzed in relation to 10 themes characteristic of positive behavior support. Participants in the studies examined included individuals with developmental disabilities and also students school-wide. Most of the research surveyed related to the promotion of positive behavior in order to resolve or prevent some behavior problem. Hypotheses were developed exclusively based on functional assessments. A smaller number of studies focused on the living environment, in order to develop support plans and evaluations. Results of the present analysis indicate that less attention has been paid to positive behavioral contingencies. Future directions for research were suggested, including developing positive behavioral contingencies based on an analysis of pre-post environments, and developing contingencies for the support people.

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