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Volume 50 (2012)
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Volume 50, Issue 1
Displaying 1-10 of 10 articles from this issue
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Original Article
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Keiko ITOH2012 Volume 50 Issue 1 Pages 1-11
Published: 2012
Released on J-STAGE: September 18, 2013
JOURNAL FREE ACCESSThe present article reports an experiment on influences of nonverbal cues on the comprehension of the Japanese directional demonstratives kocchi, socchi, and acchi. Participants were 10 children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD; average age 8.9 years, range 6-14 years) and 10 adults (age range 19-25 years) who had developed typically. The results revealed that 5 of the children with autism spectrum disorders did not use the gaze of a speaker as a nonverbal cue. A possible reason for this is that some of the children with autism spectrum disorders did not specify the direction of the speaker's gaze; another possible reason is that some of the children with autism spectrum disorders did not understand that the speaker's gaze had given them a cue identifying the object referred to with the direction demonstrative. Other possible causes for the observed results are that the children with autism spectrum disorders had not acquired appropriate language, or had problems with pragmatics. It is suggested that relations of children with autism spectrum disorders with other people should be fostered, because such relations become the foundation of language acquisition.View full abstractDownload PDF (721K)
Brief Note
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Hirotoshi OTANI2012 Volume 50 Issue 1 Pages 13-20
Published: 2012
Released on J-STAGE: September 18, 2013
JOURNAL FREE ACCESSThe purposes of the present study were to elucidate the impressions of employment assistance providers of the self-understanding of people with developmental disabilities regarding their work life, and to do an analysis of those data from the perspective of career education. Participants, 56 employment assistance providers, used a 5-point scale to evaluate 16 items about the self-understanding of people with developmental disabilities regarding their work life. The main results are as follows: (a) Factor analysis of the data resulted in the extraction of 3 mutually independent factors, which were named "necessity of alleviating problems," "approach conducive to work," and "compensatory strategy". Scales were constructed based on each of these factors; the α coefficients of the scales were relatively high, and internal consistency was demonstrated. Multiple aspects of the self-understanding of people with developmental disabilities were found. The employment assistance providers considered such self-understanding to be important in transition support for employment. (b) Differences in employment support experience were examined in relation to the self-understanding of people with developmental disabilities. When a t-test was used to compare scores for each of the scales between a group with a few years of support experience and a group with many years of support experience, the results revealed a significant difference in "necessity of alleviating problems" between the groups. Compared to the more experienced employment assistance providers, those with less experience considered it more important that people with developmental disabilities understand the necessity of alleviating difficulties in their work.View full abstractDownload PDF (835K) -
Atsuko FUJII, Yuri YOSHIDA, Jo KINBI, Yu OKANO, Toshihide KOIKE, Miyos ...2012 Volume 50 Issue 1 Pages 21-30
Published: 2012
Released on J-STAGE: September 18, 2013
JOURNAL FREE ACCESSDevelopmental studies of reading have showed that, in the lower grades of Japanese elementary schools, the level of ability to read words written in the Japanese hiragana writing system relates to pupils' level of achievement in the Japanese language. Thus, recently, a method for assessing pupils' ability to read the hiragana words in the curriculum is needed. The present study investigated the usefulness of a test of hiragana wordchains that was based on Jacobson's (1995) wordchain test. In the hiragana wordchain test, meaningful words and non-meaningful words are printed together in a chain. The participants, 189 second-grade pupils, were given the test of hiragana wordchains, as well as a test of reading hiragana words and a Japanese-language achievement test. For the wordchain test, they were instructed to mark the places in the chain where words began and ended. The odds-ratios of lower performance when reading hiragana words by those participants with lower scores on the test of hiragana wordchains were compared to the odds ratios of those participants with normal scores on that test. The odds ratios ranged from 4.30 to 9.87, indicating that the children with lower scores on the test of hiragana wordchains were more likely to get lower scores when reading hiragana words. Multiple-regression analysis revealed that the pupils' performance on the test of reading a single sentence written in hiragana, as well as on the hiragana wordchain test, was significantly related to their level of attainment as measured by the Japanese-language achievement test. This suggests that the test of hiragana wordchains might have lexical access based on the recognition of word forms, and thus might be useful for assessing the level of reading of the hiragana words in the curriculum.View full abstractDownload PDF (1216K)
Practical Research
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Yasuaki SAITA2012 Volume 50 Issue 1 Pages 31-43
Published: 2012
Released on J-STAGE: September 18, 2013
JOURNAL FREE ACCESSThe present study examined effects of an early treatment group for parents and children through a longitudinal assessment of the children's behavior. The group's purpose was for developmental support and child-care support for parents and their children who had delays in communication skills or behavior problems. The parent-child pairs (N=30) were assessed at the beginning and end of a 6-month period. Assessment sheets were used to record their behavior in free play and programmed play; other domains assessed included understanding skills, expression skills, activity, behavior problems, and the parent-child relationship. The mean age of the children at the first assessment was 30.9 months (SD=8.6). Assessments of both types of play and all the domains were higher in the second assessment than in the first. Structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis revealed the following: (a) the growth in expression skills and in the relations between the parents and their children was related to the children's growth in free play and programmed play, but (b) the children's growth in understanding skills was related only to their growth in free play. It was concluded that important skills for the two types of play are different. These findings and other findings from follow-up done after the group and case studies suggest that early group activities can be useful for assessment and early treatment.View full abstractDownload PDF (922K) -
Shuichiro HAYASHI, Shinzo ISAWA2012 Volume 50 Issue 1 Pages 45-54
Published: 2012
Released on J-STAGE: September 18, 2013
JOURNAL FREE ACCESSThe purpose of the present investigation was to decrease problem behavior and establish appropriate behavior in a boy with autism (9 years 2 months old at the start of the study) who had severe behavior problems when transitioning to a different activity. Based on an analysis of the contingencies between the problem behavior and appropriate behavior in 4 situations, antecedent controls were devised, specifically, a schedule for each activity and a timer to inform the boy of the start and finish of each activity. As consequences, praise was given for transition to another activity, and problem behavior was ignored. Following the use of this method, the problem behavior decreased, and the boy could make the transition to other activities. The present procedure was based on Horner and Billingsley's (1988) suggestion of an analysis of contingencies in situations involving problem behavior and appropriate behavior.View full abstractDownload PDF (774K) -
Kenji SHIOMI, Yasuko TOGASAKI2012 Volume 50 Issue 1 Pages 55-64
Published: 2012
Released on J-STAGE: September 18, 2013
JOURNAL FREE ACCESSThe purpose of the present case study was to examine effects of a functional assessment and an assessment-based intervention on the inappropriate behavior of a student with a severe intellectual disability. The participant in the present case study was a 13-year-old boy with a severe intellectual disability who was a student at a special needs education school. As a result of a functional assessment of his inappropriate behavior, the following target behaviors were identified: pulling the clothes of his teacher or friends, and not staying seated during classes. The analysis suggested that engaging in difficult or long-duration tasks preceded his inappropriate behavior, and that the inappropriate behavior functioned to obtain physical contact or verbal communication with his teachers and his friends. In an attempt to decrease the boy's target behavior, an intervention composed of contingency management and environmental design was implemented by his teachers. After the intervention began, the target behavior decreased; this improvement was maintained even after a period of time in which there were no classes. The present results suggest that the intervention based on the functional assessment was effective in decreasing the inappropriate behavior. It may be necessary to include functional assessment in teachers' training, so that this method may be used more widely.View full abstractDownload PDF (809K) -
Shinya YAMAMOTO, Yuko KAGAMI, Yukari TAMURA, Hiroaki HIGASHIKAWA, Shin ...2012 Volume 50 Issue 1 Pages 65-74
Published: 2012
Released on J-STAGE: September 18, 2013
JOURNAL FREE ACCESSThe present study examined effectiveness of a training program for the transition from kindergarten to elementary school by children with developmental disabilities. The purpose of the training program was to teach the children skills needed in order to participate in classes in elementary school. Participants were 5 senior kindergarten students with developmental disabilities. The 4-session training program was conducted in the elementary school that the participants would be entering. In the first session, the children introduced themselves and did exercises, such as with a trampoline and balance beam. The second session consisted of activities such as how to use the nurse's office and the lunch room. The third session consisted of arts and crafts, and the fourth, of language training and stacking blocks. In addition, all sessions included practice on greetings for the start of the class, recess, and free time, including greetings when entering the classroom, greetings at the start of class, raising one's hand for permission to ask a question, watching the presenter, and standing in line. Children who performed a target behavior correctly were praised; if they did not practice the target behavior, the trainer prompted them to do so. The children's target behaviors were evaluated through video recordings of the children and from questionnaires completed by the trainers. In addition, after the children had entered elementary school, their behavior was assessed there. The assessments indicated that after the training, all the children had acquired most of the target behaviors, and did them even after the end of the training program. The present results suggest that the training program was effective in assisting these children in the transition from kindergarten to elementary school.View full abstractDownload PDF (722K)
Current Topic
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Kaoru ICHIKI2012 Volume 50 Issue 1 Pages 75-85
Published: 2012
Released on J-STAGE: September 18, 2013
JOURNAL FREE ACCESSThe present article reviews the current situation with respect to curriculum structure and trends in research on curriculum studies in the area of education for children with multiple disabilities. After the curriculum was revised in 1971, many studies examined education for individual children with multiple disabilities who had various conditions. Most of those articles reported case studies relating to understanding children with multiple disabilities who can barely move, and to attempts to change the behavior of children with multiple disabilities by educational practice. However, few studies have been done on the design of curriculum for these children. Teachers of children with profound and multiple disabilities are uncertain about how to plan their teaching, which suggests that this might reflect a limit to "child-centered" education. When curriculum management was regarded as important, curriculum studies had to recognize commonalities between regular education and special needs education. The present results suggest that it may be necessary to investigate and construct curriculum for children with multiple disabilities in cooperation with schools and agencies that are conducting research on school-based curriculum development.View full abstractDownload PDF (921K) -
Takashi TORIGOE2012 Volume 50 Issue 1 Pages 87-96
Published: 2012
Released on J-STAGE: September 18, 2013
JOURNAL FREE ACCESSThe present paper reviews recent research and practice on inclusive education for children who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH), focusing mainly on their academic performance, their friendships with classmates who do not have hearing disabilities, and their social development in inclusive situations. The results revealed that participation in classroom activities by children who are deaf or hard of hearing and positive experiences were critical for attaining good results from inclusion. The review also considers co-enrollment programs in which children who are deaf or hard of hearing and children without hearing disabilities study together with 2 teachers working collaboratively, one a general education teacher, the other, a teacher for children who are deaf or hard of hearing. Finally, the review examines the use of sign language in inclusive classrooms from the standpoint of modality-separate and modality-mixed models. The discussion suggests that both the language input to children who are deaf or hard of hearing and quality interactions among children are important for learning.View full abstractDownload PDF (696K)
Erratum
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Article type: Erratum
2012 Volume 50 Issue 1 Pages 103
Published: 2012
Released on J-STAGE: September 20, 2013
JOURNAL FREE ACCESSDownload PDF (87K)
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