The present study retrospectively examined the developmental process of communication behavior in children from the viewpoint of their medical diagnosis. Caregivers of 8-month-old children were asked to answer questionnaires every other month regarding joint attention behaviors until the children reached 18 months old. Based on their medical diagnosis at school term, the children (680 boys, 600 girls) were divided into 5 groups: a control group (n＝1,255 children), children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) (n＝12), children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (n＝4), children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (n＝3), and children with intellectual disabilities (ID) (n＝6). Each child's joint attention behaviors were scored using a joint attention scale (Kuroki & Ohgami, 2003; in Japanese). The effect of each group at each time the survey was completed was examined using a one-way ANOVA. Significant differences were found among the groups in the development of joint attention behaviors after 12 months of age. The children with autism spectrum disorder and the children with intellectual disabilities were found to show differences from the control group at 12 months of age, whereas the children with intellectual disabilities gradually caught up with the control group on some joint attention behaviors. On the other hand, the children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder and the children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder showed signifıcant differences compared to the control group only at 18 months of age.

The present study examined how teachers who are teaching Jiritsu Katsudo, a specialized field in the national curriculum of special needs schools in Japan, to students with profound and multiple disabilities at special needs schools for children with physical disabilities cope with difficulties in those lessons, and to examine the teacher-acquired content that resulted. The participants were teachers at 44 schools for children with physical disabilities. A factor analysis of the questionnaire items dealing with the process of teaching lessons in independent living verified that teachers recognized their difficulties and solved them through collaboration with their colleagues. The results of a multivariate analysis of variance revealed that the teachers with 1 to 5 years of teaching experience at special needs schools for children with physical disabilities tended to recognize their own teaching difficulties, whereas teachers who had had many opportunities to consult one another tended to solve teaching difficulties by collaborating with their colleagues. Analysis of the free-response descriptions of teacher-acquired content for coping with difficulties revealed that during lessons in Jiritsu Katsudo, the teachers acquired knowledge and techniques on how to teach physical movements, learned teaching methods that were adapted to the children's individual characteristics, and developed diverse perspectives that were required for teachers. The teacher-acquired contents varied according to individuals' years of experience teaching students with physical disabilities. These results suggest the need for teachers to receive training in Jiritsu Katsudo, as well as a need for school organizations to be established that promote teachers' collaboration and for a reexamination of training content according to teachers' practical experience.

The present report summarizes findings from a program designed for cooperative learning through peer interaction. The participants were junior high school students with intellectual disabilities (n＝24) who were attending a school for children with special needs and their peers (n＝21) who were attending a general-education school. The program was held throughout 1 year and was comprised of 3 phases: 4 sessions of introduction using cards and recreational activities, 3 sessions of interactive sports activities, and 3 sessions of making posters to present their activities. Questionnaires were completed 4 times, including the pre- and post-surveys, by 5 of the students with special needs and by all 21 of their peers. For control and comparison, the same questionnaires were completed 4 times by 191 general-education students who did not participate in the program. The interactive sports activities were videotaped and then evaluated by 14 third-party adults. The results from the questionnaires and the third-party evaluations showed that (a) the students with special needs and their participating peers at the general-education school mutually developed positive attitudes through the program, and (b) the peers' interpersonal attraction increased not only toward the students with special needs, but also toward other individuals with disabilities in the general population. Teachers' evaluations of the interactive sports activities suggested that the physical skills of both the students with special needs and their peers improved.

The present study investigated how juvenile delinquents experience events at juvenile training school, by examining differences between reoffenders and those who did not reoffend. Male residents (N＝102) of a training school wrote essays regarding their experiences at the reformatory. Analysis of those essays showed that those juveniles who found positive meaning in their experiences at the reformatory were less likely to reoffend than those who did not. The analysis also explored ways that the delinquents had been able to fınd positive meaning in those experiences that had been painful but controllable, such as negative emotions and thoughts, versus uncontrollable ones, such as those related to environmental factors. Further research should examine whether encouraging delinquents to fınd positive meaning in their experiences in reformatories would be effective in preventing them from reoffending.

The present study examined effects of a peer group intervention for emotion regulation strategies on emotion regulation, emotion and desire suppression, and private self-consciousness in elementary school students with autism, and effects of peer learning on the acquisition of emotion regulation strategies. The participants were sixth grade students with autism and emotion dysregulation (N＝3). The program was comprised of 7 intervention sessions and 1 follow-up session. A pre-post design was used to compare the scores of the students' mothers on a questionnaire assessing emotion regulation, emotion and desire suppression, and private self-consciousness of their children. The results showed that those 3 scores improved for all students. Additionally, the students' self- or parent-reports confirmed that the participants had learned cognitive reappraisal strategies, recognized the utility of those strategies, and generalized them. These findings suggest that this peer group intervention may have been effective for teaching emotion regulation strategies to these students with autism spectrum disorder through improving their emotional self-awareness from peer-learning and through enabling them to discover their own strategies by incorporating their peers' strategies.

The present study reports development of a learning program for teaching social skills needed when dining out with a “boss”, and examination of the effects of the program. The participants in the study were 3 men with autism spectrum disorder (ages 23-25). The research design was a pre-post design consisting of a pre-test, intervention with the learning program, and a post-test. The learning program, which combined lectures and simulation training, consisted of 6 sessions, with 9 target behaviors. Examples of the target behaviors included “telling your boss to take the best seat” and “saying ‘excuse me' when you leave your seat.” In the simulation training, a self-management procedure was used to confirm each target behavior before the training and, after the training, for the participants to check whether they had performed the target behavior. After the intervention program, some of the target behaviors generalized from the person who had provided the training to the “boss”. This suggests the practical effectiveness of this program. However, a few of the target behaviors did not generalize. In order to promote generalization, it may be necessary to introduce a fading of the materials. The first implication for future research is the need to develop more effective learning programs for generalization, and the second is the importance of examining generalization to supervisors in actual workplaces. By studying this topic, researchers could contribute to the development of employment support for and research on the behavior of people with autism spectrum disorder.