Inclusive and Supportive Education Congress International Special Education Conference Inclusion: Celebrating Diversity? 1st - 4th August 2005. Glasgow, Scotland

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“Special Educational Provision for Children with Mildly
Developmentally Disabilities of Mainstream Schools in Japan”

Yoshinori Shinohara,
Kinako Ebihara, and Satoru Ono
sinohara@human.tsukuba.ac.jp

I  Introduction

The school which is located in a local town of rural areas nearby Tokyo is a comparatively middle-scale public primary school which has 15 classes, including 3 special support classes (for the mentally retarded, the emotionally disordered, and the speech disordered).

There are 24 teaching personnel in the school.

Responding to year by year gradual increasing the number of children who are attending regular classes or special classes require individualised education, teaching personnel of the school all carry out providing support to them who are in need of the individually provided special educational support, setting up the “Conference for the Individual Support as a component of the system for that support in the school.

Under the catchwords "anyone", "anytime", and "anywhere", the children who need all aspects support because of such as learning difficulties, behavioural/emotional problems, reluctance to go to school and so on are targets of the special support regardless of the existence of disabilities.

It will be reported below that the practice for the child who is tackling difficulties of learning math is carried out by the teaching personnel, using the “Conference for the Individual Support”.

Ⅱ   The "Conference for the Individual Support" and the "Committee for the Individual Support"

The "Conference for the Individual Support" and the "Committee for the Individual Support" are the supporting system set up in the school to the child who needs educational support individually. The “Committee for the Individual Support" is a central body which leads all teaching personnel to support the child who needs special educational support individually.

Those cited below are contents of which the committee has.

(1) Planning and managing.

(2) Identifying the child who needs special consideration individually.

(3) Collecting information, administering individualised tests, encouraging the school to collaborate with specialised organizations outside the school and putting forth the window service of “Guidance for Education”.

The Committee is composed by the head of the section taking charge of instructions, the superintendent of educational guidance, the teachers in charge of special support education, the superintendent of health education, the nurse-teacher, and representatives of the lower (for 1st Grades and 2nd Grades), the middle (for 3rd Grades and 4th Grades), and upper grades (for 5th Grades and 6th Grades). This Committee is held every month.

The “Conference for the Individual Support” is a body which puts the whole school approach providing the supports to the children who need individualised special educational support led in good school lives as well as learning by themselves at the regular classes and/or special support class.

The affairs the conference manages are as follows.

(1) Training: Offering information to every teaching personnel in order to help her/him to understand children exactly and to acquire the knowledge about special support education and skills to instruct them.

(2) Case Conference: Holding the case conference at which anyone becomes a good supporter, arranging the workshop to train for themselves.

(3) Liaison Conference to notify the situation to be supported: Holding the liaison conference to examine   the supports that are provided to the children not only the children with learning difficulties, LD, ADHD, reluctance to go to school etc. but any child with not specified disabilities who needs being taken extra considerations in every aspect of instructions.

The “Conference for the Individual Support” is held once every month. Besides, the case conference (guidance for education) is also held at any time. The conference is a body on which teachers argue about concretely when, who, where and what support should be given.

This conference is held at any time, when required, and it is managed by the superintendent of educational guidance, the responsible teacher in charge of special support education, classroom teachers, and other personnel involved in the special educational support.

There are the following four ways as concrete forms of the support in this school.

(1) The support provided by the classroom teacher in a regular class

(2) The support provided through team teaching in a regular class

(3) The support provided in a special support class

(4) The support provided at a special situation

It is the “Case Conference” that is the core function to help classroom teachers to support children in the regular classes, that is described first.

There are the “Math Time” and the “Open Room” as the support at the special situation (4).

The actual practices of the case conference for which all teaching personnel are taking responsibilities managed by the “Conference for the Individual Support” and both the “Math Time” and the “Open Room” as well will be put forth in this paper.

Ⅲ   The actual supports to the child who has difficulties to learn Math.

1 Understanding the conditioning of the children with learning difficulties

The academic achievement tests of Japanese and Math were administered by the Education Board of the City to assess the current state of children who have difficulties in learning Math at February 2003.

On a number and calculation, many children made wrong answers to the problems of subtractions. Especially 2nd graders made errors to borrow, while 3rd graders made errors to borrowing two times.  

It was found that some 5th graders had not learned yet the multiplication table and forgot pointing figures, and many 4th graders learned wrong fraction and decimal.

Children made lots of wrong answers with length, area, a set square, and time on quantity and measurement, the children had many wrong answers.

The “Conference for the Individual Support” made the plan of and proposed setting up the “Math Time" in conformity with these results. It was found that some 5th graders had not learned yet the multiplication table and forgot pointing figures, and many 4th graders learned wrongly fraction and decimal. Children made lots of wrong answers with length, area, a set square, and time on quantity and measurement, the children had many wrong answers.

The “Conference for the Individual Support” made the plan of and proposed setting up the "Math Time" in conformity with these results.

2 Supporting body to the children having difficulties to learn Math

 (1) Setting up the “Math Time"

The “Math Time" was set up to aim at improvement of the calculation as basic academic skills according to the results of the test about the basic academic skills administered by the education board. The “Math Time” lasts from 8:15 to 8:35 every week for Wednesday morning. And the contents of learning there were fundamental exercises that were composed mainly with areas of a number and calculation. The classroom teachers of every grade prepared exercise papers of Math.

Two "Drawer" teachers who drew circles indicated correct answers and were asked to mark on the Math expiries papers were introduced as the math volunteers to each class form 1st grade to 3rd grade. The Math Volunteer was consisted of voluntary parents of this school. The classroom teachers provided the individual support to the child with learning difficulties and/or children made wrong answers, while the volunteers were marking to the papers.

A classroom teacher with anyone from the group of which the head in charge of instruction, the teachers in charge of team teaching, the teacher majored in music and the teacher in charge of the special support education was consisted gave the individual support.

The introduction of these volunteers helps teachers to put out appropriately good support to children who need individual provision, and ends in facilitating to master the calculation skill.

(2) Setting up the "Open Room”   

The "Open Room" was set up to instruct for the improvement of the 4th, 5th and 6th graders' basic academic achievements from June 2003. It is open at every Thursday morning (8:15 - 8:35).

The contents instructed there are a multiplication, a division, a decimal, a fraction, and quantity and measurement (area, bulk, time). The number of problems set out is from 5 to ten or so. They are so easy to be solved immediately.

This time, i.e. the "Open Room", corresponds to the “Reading Time” in regular classes.

The admission of this room is according to their parents' will and demand. 24 children (twenty percent of attendance) are learning in the "Open Room”.

The “Committee for the Individual Support" took charge of management of the “Open Room”, and five persons of the special support educational person in charge who is the member of the "Committee for the Individual Support", a music specialized subject, and TT person in charge are in charge of support.

The contents of instructions were decided, in accordance with what the child wished to learn and what was assessed by classroom teachers.

The attending children are having little self-efficacy as they have not mastered yet the multification table and have difficulties in acquiring the skills to calculate. Under being a self-assessment thoroughly, several children who have attained completely basic skills already are involved.

At the end of the 2nd school term, the questionnaire was administrated to the children participated in order to get to know their attitude to the “Open Room” and answers were obtained from 19 children.

Some answers will be shown.

(1) The question "Do you have usually a good time in the open room?   17 children of them answered "Yes." to this.

(2) The question "What point does it seem advantageous for you to learn at the “Open Room”?

To this questionnaire, answers are as follows.

”It is possible for me to learn at my own pace"(N=16).  

"Learning in the “Open Room” is enjoyable"(N=7).

"Learning in the “Open Room” becomes to be understandable"(N=6).   

"It is possible for me to learn repetitively"(N=4).   

"It is possible for me to learn the subjects at which I am weak"(N=4). "It is possible for me to ask freely to teachers"(N=1).

Children participating are looking forward to learn in the open room, and regarded being engaged in the learning at their own pace as an advantage of learning there.

(3) Case Conference   

In this school, the conference is carried out by all the teaching personnel. This conference is situated in the conference for the individual support.

Anyway, teachers have an idea that they make somehow good use the know-how got through educational experiences for the support.

The purposes of this case conference were as follows.

(1) All teaching personnel can support each other by discussing on the support to children at the conference.  

(2) They all can apply indirectly that support to their provision in their own classes, with discussing on it each other.   

(3) They all can examine concrete supports with their experiences developed since ever.

This conference was carried out using the method of the incident process. This method involves following procedures.

(1) Teachers express their troubles with and wishes about a case.

(2) Teachers decide the certainly attainable purpose being based upon the information taken out by the reporter of the case. [ (4)6 person ] group which asks mutually the information which runs short in order to make the (3) purpose which determines the purpose which may be made from (2) case donor's information attain, and if he is charge

(3) Teachers are making inquiries about the information lacking for attainment of purposes.

(4) Teachers are divided into groups that are composed by nearly 6 teachers. They are discussing in groups what support they could provide if they were classroom teachers. They are taking considerations lest they should not blame parents and classroom teachers.

(5) The teachers put forward their opinions in groups.

(6) The teachers request the reporter of the case to give her/his impressions on the contents of certainly attainable supports.  

(7) The teachers administer a questionnaire to children.

Teachers hold the case conference where they take notes of the results of discussions on a tally paper. They attend easily the conference because it is not necessary for them to prepare in advance.

3 Concretely actual support

The conference was held for the Child A who is 4th grade could not acquire the multiplication by teaching personnel was carried out.

The supportable method was taken out with sharing an idea though discussions as mentioned above.

Classroom teachers selected the ways to make children (a) identify   the multiplication table (b) understand the meaning of multiplication (c) use the devised card of the multiplication table and (d) attend "the Open Room" as the applicable method to support.

The classroom teacher allowed the child A to read each line of multiplication table card along with which is given Kana Characters to pronounce, and heard her recite it every morning.

The Child A was offered the practice card of the multiplication table on that was put stickers to promote mastering the skill of multiplication, in addition to arousing motivation.   

Ⅳ  Discussion   

To provide supports is carried out by all of the teaching personnel, using the organization called the conference for the individual support.

This paper has reported how all of the teaching personnel support the child who has difficulties in learning Math.

The subject the Child A did not have psychological tests administrated individually. Administrating psychological tests requires parents' consent.

The teachers held the case conference, arranged the “Math Time” and set up the “Open Room”, under the intention "attempting anyhow to support children by themselves to the extent of their possibility".

It is unnecessary for classroom teachers to take on affairs concerning with supports for themselves, which alleviates the mental burden on them.

Furthermore, the application of volunteers to the "Math Time" has enabled classroom teachers to support children much more.

In order to offer support effectively for the children with learning difficulty, it is necessary for the school and teaching personnel to improve instructions, to make functionally the most of resources in the school and community, and to make up network and cooperation with local society and specialists.

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