What services are available to people with developmental disabilities?
From personal experience, having a disability like autism or down syndrome was something families felt a sense if shame. This is within the context of asian culture. Mind you, I grew up in north America.
I’ve worked in the school system in Canada and the demand for services is starting to shift where kids get some support at school. Students that have severe behavioral challenges where they are aggressive, may get a one to one. But that’s rare.
Students with intellectual disabilities are either put into regular classrooms with minimal support or placed into small classes. These smaller classes are for very high needs students. There’s some academics but it’s mainly life strategies.
Some kids I’ve worked with are very aggressive or non verbal with limited communication. Using PECS (picture exchange communication system) information is conveyed between the student and someone else.
What’s the education system like for students like this in Japan?
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There is very little support for students with developmental delays. There is still a sense of shame of one has a child with more severe ASD or Downs syndrome.
It was only in the past 3 years or so that more parents were willing to get their child tested for ASD and ADHD. And if ADHD or anxiety or depression is found, the schools often won’t tell all the teachers, only the homeroom teacher “because it’s private!” So the child’s math teacher or science teacher has no idea.
A Japanese friend has a child with ADHD and possibly ODD. Regular schools – mainstreamed him. Said the child could be “forced” to conform. School admin wouldn’t tell teacher the diagnosis as “they don’t need to do anything different for him.” Child was constantly chastised because he couldn’t sit still. They had to hunt for a school with resources and found very few and those were EXTREMELY expensive and had wait lists. Finally they got him in an international school (run via British government and educational standards) as the dad has a British passport. Still the price of the school is crazy high.
Its not the best. If you are looking for stuff you can apply to your class look for stuff setup by Alex Burke. She distributes a lot of material and things teachers can do to help students.
[https://alexburke.net/](https://alexburke.net/)
I am dyslexic and comparing my experience to Japanese stuff I see I will say the special needs teachers and staff are really caring though methods might be a little out dated. For example I was put into small groups with someone who is a masters level teacher, here it normally is a young teacher or someone with a little extra training.
The other issue is parents. Either they are fully onboard or in full denial. One can lead a lot of support for the student, one can lead to nothing.
It depends on the BoE I think.
One had basically nothing while one had specialists in every school. I’ve been involved in teaching them English and they’ve been some of the best students – most classes were one to one or 1 to 4 at the outside so the individual attention makes a big difference.
The “special” kids at our son’s elementary school:
1. Are included in a regular class, but also have a special separate class for each year that they may or may not receive focused attention in.
1. The one or two special lads in my son’s normal class basically just wander around the classroom and/or do their own thing when a lesson is underway. They don’t get any special assistance.
1. There also seems to be high instances of kids just not coming to school for extended periods.
Quite frankly, with some of the kids, I don’t think that they’re going to learn much in school. There should really be more focused classes just for them, instead of ignoring the problem.
One of our son’s friends *appears* to be nearly normal, but is one of the one’s who’s away from school a lot; very sensitive, apparently.
One of the other lads appears to be in a different world entirely 🙁
Disclaimer: Not an education professional.
I dont know too much about the specifics but two of our neighboors have kids with severe developmental disabilities and there is a bus that takes them to some sort of vocational program every day so some services exist. I think they are in their late 20s or early 30s. It’s just my observation but seems like everyone ignores them which is sad.