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Yutaka Sato &
Eriko Sato
Yutaka Sato and Eriko Sato Introduction Having been invited to the University of Wisconsin as a guest researcher, I stayed in Madison, the capital of Wisconsin located in Midwest America, for one year with my family. At that time, my son, who suffers serious mental handicaps and autism, was 11 years old. This paper aims to clarify problems in Japanese education for children with autism by comparing the education my son was given in the U.S. with that in Japan.
Evaluation Before being given special education in the U.S., my son was evaluated by professionals in several fields. From among the various specialists approved to work with handicapped children (teachers familiar with special education, psychologists, social workers, nurses, OTs (occupational therapist), STs (speech therapist), PTs (physiotherapist), physical education experts, etc.), some were selected to organize a team to evaluate the child. This team observed and judged the characteristics and degree of the child's handicaps from their various viewpoints to determine what educational program he needed. Although public institutions in Japan also evaluate children before they enter school, such evaluation is only to determine which school a child should attend: ordinary class, special class or a school for handicapped children. The evaluation is not conducted with the purpose of learning how to educate the child. Moreover, parents' desires are often disregarded when determining which school their children should attend.
Individual Education Program (IEP) In the U.S., a meeting was held to prepare for individual education program on the basis of the evaluation mentioned above. At the meeting, a curriculum best suited to my son was drawn up based on the opinions of the parents, the said child, the principal, the classroom teacher and the members of the team who evaluated. There is nothing equivalent to this individual education in Japan, and educational activities only depend on the ideas of the classroom teachers. Accordingly, some children with skilled teachers can receive relatively good education, but others cannot expect many educational gains and sometimes even receive damage. The probability for children to meet up with a skilled classroom teacher is extremely low.
Roles of parents In the U.S., the Special Education Committee gave me a pamphlet on the "rights of parents and children in special education." They provided detailed explanations of the process for planning and conducting individual education needed by handicapped children and enabled me to clearly understand the responsibilities and rights of parents. Such rights include receiving limitless educational services suitable to each child from public institutions and access to all records relating to the child at an appropriate time. The pamphlets, which started with explanations of the importance of parents' roles and responsibilities, made me think that everyone professionally involved in the education of children must fully understand such matters. In fact, the ideas of parents were adopted surprisingly easily, and teachers who wanted to introduce something new always asked for the parents' consent. We parents were able to participate in our child's education, in an atmosphere which allowed us to feel that we were playing leading roles, and such feelings aroused a new sense of responsibility and satisfaction. It is parents who are responsible for their children for their whole lives, and it is families who are most strongly influenced by the conditions of the children whether they are good or bad. It is therefore natural that evaluation of education must not be conducted without the parents. The roles of parents are important because the effects of education should be expanded and applied to a community consisting of families as its basic units. In Japan, schools and teachers are playing leading roles in education, and they decide and implement everything. There is no room to adopt parents' opinions, and no information is available to parents.
Professionalism of teachers In the U.S., many kinds of specialists involved in education for handicapped children were available to the public through schools that serve as windows to the community. Teachers enrolled in special education courses in university were endeavouring to be highly professional. In some states, only those with a master's degree can be teachers involved in the education of handicapped children. In addition, many universities provide special education courses for teachers, subsidized by public funds. These indicate that a high level of professionalism is expected in the education of handicapped children. In Japan, there are many cases where teachers who have not majored in special education are employed by schools for handicapped children or teach special classes, and the training system after employment is insufficient. Accordingly, the sense of professionalism of teachers in Japan is extremely low. Since they do not have a thorough understanding of autism, they often employ wrong methods of instruction and mislead autistic children into problem causing behaviour.
Consistency The U.S. guarantees individual education through an established program until a handicapped child is 21 years old, providing constant and consistent education even if their schools or teachers change. Such education is intended to help children lead an independent and affluent life as part of a community in the future, and is provided by schools in the community for more than 12 years. The education in Japan does not have such objectives and fails to establish educational programs which take into account the children's future. As a result, educational activities depend on ideas of classroom teachers and are apt to be haphazard and inconsistent. Every year when the classroom teacher changes, educational activities change, and parents have to inform the new teachers all over again about the characteristics of their children's handicaps, the developmental stage they have achieved and so on.
Burdens on parents As the roles of parents are important in the U.S., the burden on the parents may seem to be heavy. In fact, I did not feel burdened at all because I was eager to participate in an important part of the education program. In the U.S., I felt much more at ease than in Japan. This is because such participation helped me to clearly understand and accept the curriculum designed in accordance with my son. There was no need for me to take my son for extra lessons or training after school or to teach my son by myself in order to make up for the deficiency at school. The program provided at school included everything he needed. On the contrary, schools for handicapped children and special classes in Japan are not a means to provide them with education but only a respite, and parents have to plan and give education after school. The U.S. provided us with services for helping parents, including school buses that drive children to and from the door of their house, day service centres accepting children after school, to which school buses will also carry the children (free of charge), and respite care services for families with handicapped children. As you see, the parent support system in the U.S. has been improved so that parents can lead a life that is not too heavily burdened. Such a system enables even mothers with disabled children to live in their own way, and the birth of a disabled child does not mean unhappiness for the family. Many mothers in Japan say that they have reconciled themselves to not enjoying their own life or have given up on themselves, or they are unaware that they have endured such hardship. I cannot help but exclaim that I have doubts about the rights of parents with handicapped children in Japan, who have been supporting and educating their children all by themselves because they fear that the future of their children only depends on the parents.
Conclusion The problems with education for autistic children in Japan, including those which have not been discussed here, are the following six: (1) Since education is not designed with the goal for children to lead lives involved in the community, programs considering their future cannot be established. Accordingly, educational activities are haphazard and inconsistent. (2) There are no systems covering the spectrum from evaluation of children, preparation of programs for individual education and implementation of the programs to re-evaluation. (3) No schools have specialists other than teachers. (4) There are no systems allowing the adoption of parents' opinions or providing parents with information. (5) Since handicapped children are isolated from normal children, it is impossible for parents and teachers to have an "inclusion" approach even if they want to. (6) Teachers do not have a thorough understanding of
autistic children, and their professionalism is very low.
The system to train teachers is insufficient. Moreover,
teachers are not supported by specialists or assistants.
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