Research Highlights

Research Highlights top

Children with developmental disorders and their families projectAddressing the issue of support for children with developmental disorders and their families

writer: TAKEUCHI, Yoshiaki (College of Social Science Professor ) published: 2013-1

Project
overview

 The children with developmental disorders and their families project started aiming at conducting practical research about the needs of children having severe difficulty with human relations and their families. We have been conducting practical research in order to clarify their actual needs and to find the way to support them from the perspective of developmental support service. The areas covered by this project include school, the home, local communities, specialized institutions, and exchanges with groups in other countries such as China and Vietnam. Its main aims are to develop support programs through treatment and education initiatives for children (including infants, children, and young adults) who have difficulty with human relations, investigate the needs of these children with special needs and their families (this will involve international collaborative research), conduct research related to the early discovery of and early response to developmental disorders, and engage in research on support that expects lifelong development in children/people with developmental disorders.

From
this year’s initiatives

 The research team aims to develop a treatment and education program spanning infancy, childhood and adolescence that will provide developmental support for children with high-functioning autism/Asperger’s syndrome, and this year it has continued its treatment and education activities focused on play. The team plans to report on the results of these initiatives at the annual meeting of the Japan Society of Developmental Psychology held in March, 2013 under the title “Development of treatment and education programs to support play and group activities for children on the autism spectrum,” with separate reports being presented by three sections divided by age group. In parallel with these efforts the team will also continue a three-country research study examining the needs of children with developmental disorders and their families in Japan, China and Vietnam. This year the team also plans to present the results of research conducted in China utilizing a method (named Life-line Interview Method) for approaching the thoughts and feelings of individual parents of children with developmental disorders at the same annual meeting of developmental psychology in March. In addition, we consider making  supplementary report based on the analysis of the information gained through the survey in three countries –Japan, China and Vietnam.

Overview
of new initiatives

 The research team is planning to develop a checklist based on the characteristics of stages of development as a tool for the early discovery of developmental disorders. Experimental trials in this area have already begun, and going forward we hope to further expand this research with the aim of developing a checklist with a solid empirical basis by continuing to collect data and employing multivariate analysis techniques such as correspondence analysis.

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journal

Ritsumeikan Journal of Human Sciences

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