The purposes of the present study were to examine conditions for optimal interactions between students from a standard school and students from a school for students with intellectual disabilities, and to discuss relationships between the quality of interactions and effects of the interactions on the attitudes of the students from the standard school toward the students from the school for students with intellectual disabilities. Videotape recordings were made of interactions between students from a school for students with intellectual disabilities and students from a standard high school. Students (N=10) from the standard high school were interviewed, using a stimulated recall procedure based on visual data created from interactions observed in the recordings. Qualitative analysis of the interview data produced 6 categories that comprise both conditions for determining the quality of an interaction and sub-structures of those conditions: (a) possibility of engagement, (b) closeness of distance, (c) equality of status, (d) extent of being interactive, (e) intensity of good feelings, and (f) potential for understanding others. The following conclusions were drawn: although personal factors may affect outcomes, that effect is mediated by individuals' evaluation of their experience of the interactions. Also, a sufficient quantity of interactions is necessary in order to ensure the quality of interactions.

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Joint attention is one predictor of later social-communication behaviors of children with autism spectrum disorder. In the present study, joint attention behavior was divided into 2 categories: initiating joint attention (IJA), including the child's pointing, and responsiveness to joint attention (RJA), including gaze-following and pointing-following. Recently, research on eye-tracking responsiveness to joint attention in babies and toddlers has increased. However, we found few published studies that established the validity of eye-tracking assessment as a measure of responsiveness to joint attention. The present study evaluated the validity of an eye-tracking measure of responsiveness to joint attention by analyzing relations between eye-tracking measures and measures of joint attention, language skills, and symptoms of autism as reported by the parents of 60 young children with developmental disorders, including autism spectrum disorder. The correlations between the measures of parent-reported joint attention and the eye-tracking measures of responsiveness to joint attention were statistically significant. The present study thus supports the validity of eye-tracking measures of responsiveness to joint attention. The correlations among the eye-tracking measures of responsiveness to joint attention and the children's reported language skills and symptoms of autism were statistically significant, even when chronological age and developmental age were controlled. Eye-tracking may provide a useful measure of joint attention in young children, especially of responsiveness to joint attention, and may enable early detection of autism spectrum disorder in young children.

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The present study examined elementary school resource room teachers' perception of their duties as teachers of students with speech disorders, and factors that affect those perceptions. When factor analysis was performed on 153 participants' responses on the questionnaires, the following 5 factors were identified: (a) collaboration between resource room and regular classroom instruction, (b) establishment of a network with various local parties in order to cooperate to solve issues related to resource room instruction, (c) identification of causes of learning disabilities, (d) improvement in instruction methods, based on relations with classmates, in order to develop self-understanding and self-confidence, and (e) guidance in how to improve speech. The analysis revealed that establishment of a network with various local parties in order to cooperate to solve issues related to resource room instruction and identification of causes of learning disabilities were significantly associated with various other factors. In addition, establishment of a network with various local parties in order to cooperate to solve issues related to resource room instruction was significantly associated with number of years of experience as a resource room teacher for students with speech disorders, working as a special needs education coordinator, local role, and the number of pupils with developmental disorders. On the other hand, collaboration between resource room and regular classroom instruction and improvement in instruction methods, based on relations with classmates, in order to develop self-understanding and self-confidence were not found to be significantly associated with any of the other factors. The discussion indicated how these findings might be used to investigate future forms of pre-service and in-service training for elementary school resource room teachers of students with speech disorders.

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In the past in Japan, residential institutions for “feeble-minded children” provided for their education and treatment. The first such residential institution was Takinogawa Institute, which was established by Ryoichi Ishii. Previously, Ishii had been the director of an institution for orphan girls, but in 1897, he changed its focus to providing education for children with intellectual disabilities. By the time of World War II, approximately 10 private institutions for such children had been built, offering what the public system did not provide. The present study reports an analysis of publications since 1965, focusing on trends in studies in the 2000's, and on results of studies from 1965 through the 1990's. The present report identifies 4 significant contemporary problems in the study of the history of institutions for children with intellectual disabilities that should be examined in the future, including (a) continued maintenance of historical resources and conduct of analyses based on them, (b) reconsideration of terms relating to “feeble-mindedness” and their association with individuals' degree of intellectual disabilities, (c) evaluation of educational methods that have been used in those institutions, because they are part of the history of special education in Japan, and (d) examination of the degree to which practices of Japanese residential institutions for individuals with intellectual disabilities were historically influenced by methods of care for such individuals in the United States and European countries.

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The present study is an examination of issues in the training of instructors of students with disabilities through a review of studies published from 2000 through 2016. Training was classified as either a training program or consultation. Research articles were selected for the review if the trainees' occupation was described as nursery school or preschool teacher, elementary or secondary school teacher, special education teacher, or university student or graduate student, and if the purpose of the training was knowledge acquisition or technical improvement of methods of instruction of students with disabilities. The results suggested that such training follows a Plan-Do-Check-Action (PDCA) process, or specializes in planning stages. A large part of the training programs reviewed was concerned with how to teach students with disabilities to interact every day so that they would acquire and internalize the Plan-Do-Check-Action process. In the articles reviewed, trainees examined problem factors as clues for format of training students with disabilities. Of the articles reviewed, only 15% (6 articles) were written in collaboration with supporters or parents. Based on the results of the present study, it is recommended that future research focus on (a) systematic human resource development and utilization of school committees, (b) accumulation of the training and necessity of training for individualized educational plans aiming for long-term goals, and (c) training that promotes collaboration between teachers and parents.

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