The present study examined facial expression cognition features of students at a reformatory school, using a facial expression recognition task that was created on the basis of previous research. In order to evaluate the judgments of facial expressions in photos made by the group from a reformatory school (66 males; average age 19.2 years), their results were compared with the results from a group of 60 male university students (average age 20.15 years) without any delinquency history or developmental disorders. The comparison, which included all genders and photos presented in the task, revealed that the percentage of correct answers was relatively lower in the reformatory student group than in the university student group, especially in the recognition of expressions of sadness, fear, and disgust. In addition, the analysis of the error rate showed that the reformatory student group tended to confuse sadness and disgust, and to misinterpret disgust as anger and fear as sadness in the photos of males. The results of the present study may have limitations because of restrictions in the selection of participants. However, the study suggests that the reformatory school students failed to interpret the correct intentions of others from their facial expressions. This may be a factor in their problems with interpersonal relationships. In particular, the reformatory school students tended to consider others to be aggressive.

To investigate the current situation and issues relating to group therapy for children who stutter in Japan, a questionnaire was mailed to 155 elementary schools that had speech and language disorder (SLD) resource rooms. Useable data were obtained from teachers at 88 resource rooms. The results showed that 27.2％ of those schools' resource rooms had group therapy for the students, most commonly small group therapy with 2 or 3 children who stutter. The purpose of the group therapy was to help the children who stutter feel at ease as a result of meeting other children who stutter. Teachers who did not provide group therapy were asked why they did not provide it. The main reason given was that their resource rooms did not have enough children who stutter to enable formation of a group. Based on these results, the challenges and directions of group therapy in speech and language disorder resource rooms were discussed. The present results were compared with the results of a survey in Britain by Liddle et al. (2011).

In recent years, early detection and early support of children with special needs have become important. The present study examined the system of early support for 4-year-old children with special needs in preschools. The intervention group consisted of 714 children (average age 53.6 months) in 38 classes at 38 preschools, the control group, 159 children (average age 53.0 months) in 7 classes at 5 preschools. The local government identified 32 boys and 14 girls in the intervention classes, and 6 boys and 3 girls in the control classes as requiring developmental support. For the intervention group, behavioral observations by 9 psychologists and 5 occupational therapists, discussions with the teachers at the preschools on support methods, and meetings whose participants included academic experts were conducted in order to determine the content of the support that the children were receiving. In addition, the child care workers at all locations completed checklists for each child before and after the intervention, so that effects of the intervention could be identified. The results suggested that the intervention improved the children's overall comprehension, language, and hyperactivity/impulsivity. In addition, when the data were examined in relation to characteristics of the children, such as those with weaknesses in comprehension and language, the intervention was found to have improved weak factors in all the subgroups of the intervention group. Effects of the intervention were also observed in children who were not examined individually, suggesting the effectiveness of the class-wide approach. After the contents of the support were explained to the parents, some of the children were referred to local developmental support centers. Future research should examine the level of understanding and changes in the parents and the rigor of the intervention, as well as continued evaluation and support.

A preliminary study of an information and communication technology (ICT)-based self-learning support system was conducted for approximately 2 years with a junior high school student who had difficulty learning to write kanji correctly. The student was in the eighth grade at the start of his participation. The purposes of the present study were to examine effects of the system and to identify variables that needed to be taken into account when a similar system was used to support kanji writing. Using this system, the participant was involved in creating 244 kanji questions, including 440 characters that were new to him. He was able to answer these questions 893 times at home. These results suggested that the series of supportive procedures included in the system was effective. When using a similar system, it is important to consider (a) the cognitive characteristics and self-esteem of the learners, (b) participation of the learners when creating information and communication technology-based learning materials, (c) establishing a system that can support students' learnering at any time, and (d) introducing an evaluation method to verify the effectiveness of the support in the participants' daily lives.

The present study examined effects of primary prevention in 4 classes in a public preschool. The participating children were 4-year-olds (32 children in 2 classes) and 5-year-olds (39 children in 2 classes). School staff participating included the principal, the school nurse, and teachers (a total of 9 adults). At support meetings, the teachers were asked to describe situations in which the children had exhibited behavior problems in the classroom. The teachers identified 3 of the 5-year-olds and 5 of the 4-year-olds as having problems such as leaving their seats, inappropriate sitting posture, use of a private language, and a lack of relationships with other children. The teachers shared existing effective support methods for children's listening behavior. A special education consultant provided praise specifically for the teachers' implementation of effective support, including performance feedback. The results suggested that the teachers had implemented effective support which was shared at the support meetings. Also, the children leaving their seats and inappropriate sitting posture improved in all classes. These results suggest that the opportunity to share effective support methods based on the school's policies promoted expansion of the teacher's support for class-wide strategies, and may have been effective for reducing the burden on teachers and increasing the feasibility of support for primary prevention. More intensive and individualized interventions to reduce the number of behavior problems are needed as some of the children still had behavior problems. Future research is needed in primary prevention for all children in school settings.