Japanese Nursery Research Articles

Assessment of Abuses of Children with Disabilities in Japanese Nursery Schools by Municipality

Introduction: Many children with disabilities and latent characteristics are cared for in nursery schools (daycare centres). Paediatricians commissioned by nursery schools in our previous survey proved the occurrence of disabled children abused in schools. As the parents of the alleged victims were likely to contact the municipality, a survey of the municipalities managing childcare was requested.
 Methods: The target group was local authorities' childcare service management departments (public authorities). Questionnaires were sent twice to 1,742 municipalities from late 2012 to the fiscal year (FY) 2014. Incidents were collected by inquiring about implementing preventive measures and reasonable accommodations.
 Results: The number of municipalities that responded was 490 and 595, respectively, and 38 and 7 municipalities received complaints from parents that instructors had abused their children with disabilities. Based on the number of reports, the incidence of abuse in nursery schools in 2014 was estimated to be 0.0077% (95% CI: 0.0059–0.0094) and 0.0208% (0.0073–0.0344) for children with disabilities. In the 2014-2015 research periods, more teachers and staff were made aware of the consultation service as a preventive measure, and more emphasis was placed on the informed consent of parents as a reasonable accommodation. Regional characteristics, classified by the percentage of children, influenced the implementation of some measures.
 Conclusion: The incidence in Japan was estimated to be lower than in other countries.

Mask wearing in Japanese and French nursery schools: The perceived impact of masks on communication.

Due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, covering the mouth region with a face mask became pervasive in many regions of the world, potentially impacting how people communicate with and around children. To explore the characteristics of this masked communication, we asked nursery school educators, who have been at the forefront of daily masked interaction with children, about their perception of daily communicative interactions while wearing a mask in an online survey. We collected data from French and Japanese nursery school educators to gain an understanding of commonalities and differences in communicative behavior with face masks given documented cultural differences in pre-pandemic mask wearing habits, face scanning patterns, and communicative behavior. Participants (177 French and 138 Japanese educators) reported a perceived change in their own communicative behavior while wearing a mask, with decreases in language quantity and increases in language quality and non-verbal cues. Comparable changes in their team members' and children's communicative behaviors were also reported. Moreover, our results suggest that these changes in educators' communicative behaviors are linked to their attitudes toward mask wearing and their potential difficulty in communicating following its use. These findings shed light on the impact of pandemic-induced mask wearing on children's daily communicative environment.

Children's affiliation toward peers reflected in their picture drawings.

Previous studies have demonstrated that a picture-drawing task can be an indicator of the affiliation children have with their peers. When a child draws himself/herself along with a peer, the distance between them is assumed to represent the extent of the affiliation held by the child toward the peer: the shorter the distance is, the more affiliation the child has. However, some issues remain before the picture-drawing task is established as a way to measure children's affiliation, including the possibility that the instructions might bias the children's responses (Thomas & Gray, 1992), and inconsistency over where to measure in the children's drawings (e.g., Song et al., 2015). In this study, we focused on the above two issues and addressed whether the picture-drawing task can be used for measuring children's affiliation toward peers. We conducted our study in Japanese nursery schools with 3- to 6-year-old children (N = 676), who drew pictures of themselves and a classmate. Teachers rated how much the children had played with the drawn peer. We found that the more a child had an affiliative relationship with a peer, the shorter the distance between the drawn child and peer was when measuring the closest points and the center between the two drawn figures. Our research sheds light on the validity of the picture-drawing task for measuring children's affiliation.

An Assessment of Abuse of Children with Disabilities at Japanese Nursery Schools: Reports by Commissioned Pediatricians

Background: In a preschool setting, childcare is usually provided to children with disabilities or potential features as well. In this study, we hypothesized that parents might have additionally consulted commissioned pediatricians when their children were reportedly abused by schoolteachers as well as following legitimate grievance procedures.
 Aims: To estimate the prevalence rate of children with disabilities being abused at nursery schools in Japan, the authors asked the help of commissioned pediatricians of nursery schools.
 Methods: We sent a questionnaire to 1,607 members of the Japanese Society for Well-being of Nursery-schoolers, who are specialists known to be highly sensitive to abuses. Incident reports from the second half of 2012 to the fiscal year 2014 were collected from 361 members who replied.
 Results: In total, three respondents, including one pediatrician, had received a complaint(s) from parents that their child with disabilities had been abused by a teacher. No details on each case were provided.
 Conclusion: Thus, the need for another assessment to administrative was indicated.

Contrastive Analysis of Onomatopoeic Use in Nursery Rhymes as Children’s Environmental Sounds Recognition in Japanese and Indonesian

Nursery rhymes play a role in children’s language development and help them recognize and express the environmental sounds or sounds around them. Onomatopoeia or imitation words are often found in nursery rhymes. Every country has a different language, so it has different phonetic sounds to express onomatopoeia. In this research, the author will contrast the onomatopoeic use in Japanese and Indonesian nursery rhymes. The theory and classification of onomatopoeia used in this research are combinations proposed by Akimoto (2002) and Kaneda (1978). This qualitative research used the listening and note-taking methods from Youtube videos. The analysis data used in this research are the referential matching method. The result from the research data shows that in Japanese nursery rhymes, onomatopoeia is the sound of nature, the sound from an object, the sound of a human, the sound of an animal, object condition, object movement, human movement, animal movement, and human emotion are found. Meanwhile, in Indonesian nursery rhymes found, almost all types of onomatopoeia in Japanese are found except for the class of the sound of a human, object movement, and human emotion are not found.

How Did the Young Children Encounter the Japanese Urban Landscape?: A Study on Emergent Pedagogy for Sustainability Transformation

This research evaluates how children’s new subjectivities emerge through exploring urban landscapes in the river basin in Tokyo. Research has stressed the importance of children as active agents, while posthuman perspectives include all elements of human–nature entangled world as potential agents. This analysis indicates how an assemblage of human and non-human agents contributes to enacting children as critical agents for sustainability issues. The theoretical framework for this study is the theory of landscape, including traditional Japanese discourses and the assemblage theory inspired by Félix Guattari’s ecosophy. One of the authors conducted nine-month ethnographic research at a Japanese nursery in 2018, accompanying a five-year-old class whose curiosity drove the expedition at the river basin all the way to the Tokyo Bay. The authors applied the method of multiple interpretations of the documentation, including photos and children’s drawings. This exploration and subsequent events during the journey transformed the children’s fragmented interpretation of the environment into an interconnected one and translated it into tangible action. This study illustrated that stimulating children’s subjectivity toward the landscape and fostering their positive but critical relationship with it through emergent first-hand exploration provided them with potential grounds to be resilient by ethically and ecologically responding to changes in vulnerable environments and potential commons in the community and to take actions for sustainable lifestyles at present and in the future.

Education for Improving Children’s Behaviors during Eating in a Japanese Nursery School

Nursery school is an important stage for improving children’s eating behaviors because eating behaviors are established in early childhood. Thus, this study aimed to establish an adequate method for educating children regarding such behaviors during early stages of development. To this end, we elucidated the causal effects of children’s behaviors during eating at a nursery school. Cross-sectional data were used. Behaviors during eating lunch, quantity of leftovers from meals, and children’s preferences for school lunch were measured. Causal effects between the measured variables were analyzed using the Bayesian network analysis. The causes leading to time spent talking were turning sideways, playing, and standing up. Turning sideways, playing, and standing up depended positively on the time spent of talking (p=0.01). The times spent of talking affected the time spent of holding foods in one’s mouth. The time spent of talking was positively depended by time spent of holding foods in one’s mouth (p=0.02). Decreasing the time spent turning sideways, playing, and standing up might decrease talking, which in turn may decrease the time spent holding food in one’s mouth. Instructing children not to turn sideways, play, or stand up would be an effective way to educate them on desirable behaviors during school lunch.

Postural change for supine position does not disturb toddlers\u2019 nap

This study examined whether forced postural change from prone to supine during toddlers’ nap, a preventative measure taken in Japan for sudden unexplained death in childhood (SUDC), disturbs toddlers’ sleep. When the "Back to Sleep" campaign (BSC) was introduced to Japan in 1996, its recommendations were also applied to infants aged 1 year old and over with the expectation that the BSC recommendations may also contribute to a decrease in the occurrence rate of SUDC. Since then, Japanese nurseries have routinely conducted sleeping position checks and positional adjustments of toddlers every 5–10 min during naps. A total of 52 toddlers (age 18.4 ± 3.3 months, means ± SD) were continuously monitored for 8 h during daytime at nursery schools for wake-sleep status and body position (prone, supine and lateral) with actigraphs and 3-orthogonal-axis accelerometers. Out of the 52 toddlers, 24 toddlers adopted prone positions during naps, which were adjusted by nursery staff back to supine. When nursery staff manually changed the toddlers position from prone to supine, the toddlers either did not wake or woke only briefly (3.1 ± 4.9 min) and returned to sleep soon after the positional change. Our study indicates that manual change of toddlers’ sleeping position from prone to supine, a potential SUDC prevention method, does not disturb toddlers’ sleep during their naps.

Snacking in Japanese nursery school children aged 3-6 years: its characteristics and contribution to overall dietary intake.

This cross-sectional study evaluated the dietary characteristics of snacks, the contribution of snacks to daily nutrient intake and the association of energy intake (EI) from snacks with the prevalence of nutritional inadequacy in Japanese nursery school children. Foods and nutrients consumed in each eating occasion were assessed by 3-d dietary records. The prevalence of inadequate intake of twenty nutrients assessed by the age- and sex-specific reference values in the Japanese Dietary Reference Intakes was compared according to tertile categories of EI from snacks. A multi-regional dietary survey based on nursery schools in Japan. A total of 187 boys and 191 girls aged 3-6 years. EI from snacks accounted for 19·5 % (sd 6·9) of total daily EI. Confectionaries accounted for the largest part of EI from snacks (35·3 %), followed by milk (19·5 %). Relative to their energy contribution, snacks accounted for a small proportion for all nutrients examined, except for free sugar, calcium, SFA and riboflavin. Although a higher EI from snacks was associated with favourable profiles for intakes of calcium, iron, thiamine and riboflavin, excessive intakes of free sugar and Na were more prevalent among children with a higher EI from snacks. Although snacks are effective in meeting the requirement of some nutrients among Japanese nursery school children, snacks are generally not nutrient-dense and have an impact on excessive intake of some nutrients. There is hence room for improvement in food choices at snack time.

Psychological distress and associated factors among Japanese nursery school and kindergarten teachers: a cross-sectional study.

The understaffing of nursery schools and kindergartens and the increasing workload of childcare workers are becoming significant issues in Japan. In this study, a cross-sectional survey was conducted to investigate the stress experienced by childcare workers and its antecedents. We distributed 2,640 questionnaires to childcare workers in Miyagi prefecture, obtaining a response rate of 51.9% (n=1,370). Finally, 1,210 valid questionnaires were used in the analysis. As a stress indicator, psychological distress was measured with the Kessler Screening Scale for Psychological Distress (K6). The mean K6 score was 7.0 (SD=5.4), and the prevalence of psychological distress (K6 score ≥5) was 60.0%. Considering work-related factors, the mean scores were as follows: supervisor support 11.8 (2.6), coworker support 12.1 (2.0), work engagement 3.2 (1.2), and effort-reward ratio 0.93 (0.53). A multivariate logistic regression analysis with adjustment for possible confounders revealed that increased psychological distress was associated with higher effort-reward ratio, lower support from supervisors and coworkers, lower work engagement, and insufficient sleep. These results suggest that elevated psychological distress is strongly associated with effort-reward imbalance, while high work engagement in childcare workers helped to reduce their distress.

Preschool children's eating and sleeping habits: late rising and brunch on weekends is related to several physical and mental symptoms

ObjectiveAs the relationships of sleep-wake schedule and mealtime with children's behaviors have not often been studied together, we investigated the relationships of these lifestyles variables with preschool children's well-being. MethodsUsing a network survey, we investigated several lifestyle variables of 1000 families with preschool children. ResultsOur previous articles reported that preschool children's bedtime was delayed by the compulsory nap routine in Japanese nursery schools. The present study revealed similar results. We conducted a cluster analysis with children's meal and sleep time data, which yielded five different lifestyle groups. Cluster 1 was characterized by “extremely late and irregular” meal and sleep times; similar to Cluster 1, Cluster 2 was a “late and irregular” lifestyle group. Cluster 3 was a “mildly late” lifestyle group. Cluster 4 was an “early bird and regular lifestyle” group, and Cluster 5 resembled the “early bird and regular lifestyle” group on weekdays, but was “late and irregular on weekends.” It was found that the later and more irregular the children's meal and sleep times, the worse their physical and mental condition. Even for Cluster 5, the children who had early and regular meal and sleep times on weekdays, getting up and having breakfast late and irregularly on weekends showed worse physical and mental conditions. These problematic symptoms observed in children with late meal and sleep times on weekends might be partly associated with the irregularity of their habits and partly associated with delayed mealtime, especially for breakfast (brunch). ConclusionA stable lifestyle, including a regular sleep and wake schedule and mealtime, is important for preschool children's mental and physical health.

Relationship between burnout and circadian typology and sleep habits in Japanese nursery school and kindergarten teachers

ABSTRACTThere have been few studies on the relationship between diurnal rhythms & sleep habits and the burnout of teachers of young children attending nursery schools and kindergarten. This study aims to clarify this relationship with a questionnaire. Integrated questionnaire was given to 272 teachers who worked at 10 nursery schools founded by Kochi city and one kindergarten affiliated with the Facuty of Education, Kochi University. Responses were recieved from 220 teachers (response rate: 80.8%). The integrated questionnaire included Diurnal Type Scale (DTS), questions on sleep hatits, questions on lighting conditions, and the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). There was no correlative relationship between MBI and DTS. However, the total score for three questions on morning phase ("morning scores") among the DTS was significantly negatively correlated with MBI (waking up later related to higher burnout score; p=0.001). A significantly positive correlation was observed between MBI and three questions scores related to evening phase ("evening scores") (earlier bed time related higher burnout scores; p=0.001). This opposite direction of phase shift at night and in the morning can increase sleep hours. As a physiological view point, a high level of burnout may result in a longer duration of sleep as one homeostatic response.

保育園における「かみつき」と保育制度の変化との関連 -21年間の保育実践報告の分析から-

保育園における「かみつき」と保育制度の変化との関連 -21年間の保育実践報告の分析から-

Impairment of the Missing Fundamental Phenomenon in Individuals with Alzheimer’s Disease: A Neuropsychological and Voxel-Based Morphometric Study

Background/Aims: The missing fundamental phenomenon (MFP) is a universal pitch perception illusion that occurs in animals and humans. In this study, we aimed to determine whether the MFP is impaired in patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) using an auditory pitch perception experiment. We further examined anatomical correlates of the MFP in patients with AD by measuring gray matter volume (GMV) on magnetic resonance images via voxel-based morphometric analysis. Methods: We prospectively enrolled 29 patients with AD and 20 healthy older adults. Auditory stimuli included 12 melodies of Japanese nursery songs that were expected to be familiar to participants. We constructed the melodies using pure and missing fundamental tones (MFTs). Results: Patients with AD exhibited significantly poorer performance on the MFT task than healthy controls. MFT scores were positively correlated with GMV in the bilateral insula and temporal poles, left inferior frontal gyrus, right entorhinal cortex, and right cerebellum. Conclusions: These results suggest that impairments in the MFP represent a manifestation of the degeneration of auditory-related brain regions in AD. Further studies are required to more fully elucidate the neural mechanisms underlying auditory impairments in patients with AD and related dementia disorders.

Inter-Regional Differences in Travel Time to the Nearest Nursery for Children with Mild Acute Illness in Japan.

Access to day-care services for children with mild acute illness is important for working parents, because infants and toddlers often suddenly become ill, and most Japanese nursery schools do not accept children with even mild illnesses. Actual travel time to nurseries providing such day-care services is one of the indicators for measuring accessibility. However, this variable has not been well analyzed in previous work. To clarify practical access to such nurseries, this study used a car navigation algorithm to calculate the percentage of the population of children in Japan who can access nurseries providing services for children with mild acute illnesses within 15 to 30 minutes and compared this with the proportion of children living within a linear distance of 10 km of such nurseries. Of the 4,987,706 children younger than 5 years in 2015, 51.7% lived in areas from which the nearest nursery for children with mild acute illness was accessible within 0-15 minutes by automobile. In addition, 81.5% lived within 0-30 minutes of such nurseries, and the same percentage (81.5%) lived within a linear distance of 10 km of such nurseries. Both calculation methods (travel time and linear distance) showed inter-regional differences in accessibility, and the proportion of children with access to these nurseries was higher in heavily populated regions (e.g., Kanto and Kinki) than in less populated regions (e.g., Hokkaido and Tohoku). Children and caregivers throughout Japan should have equal access to these nurseries, because the national government subsidizes such services.

集団保育における年少児の着席行動の時系列分析 : 「お誕生会」の準備過程を対象として

集団保育における年少児の着席行動の時系列分析 : 「お誕生会」の準備過程を対象として

Teaching reflective care in Japanese early childhood settings

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this article is to explore the way preschool teachers teach reflective care in Japan. The article builds on a two-month ethnographic study conducted in Japanese kindergartens and nurseries among children aged 3–6 years. The data were analysed using concepts of age and gender. The results show that care in Japan, in contrast to strong discoursers of learning in several western countries, is seen as part of teaching children how to behave in public space together with others. Teaching care tends to be reflectively and thoughtfully planned by the pedagogues. It is organized to teach children self-reliance, using common projects and with pedagogues working with inclusion. Care was seldom analysed in relation to the children's gender but rather in terms of their age or developmental ‘steps’ such as being able to take care of oneself, take care of the preschool space and care for others.

Japanese nursery and kindergarten teachers' beliefs and practices regarding developmentally appropriate practices

This study explored Japanese day nursery and kindergarten teachers' beliefs and practices regarding developmentally appropriate practices. Data were collected using in-depth interviews. Teacher interviews provided insights into the merger of the childcare and education systems of Japan. Six themes emerged from the analysis of the day nursery and kindergarten teachers' interviews: (1) play is learning; (2) physical and social development is of utmost importance; (3) the teacher is an observer, facilitator and role model; (4) assigning roles and tasks is common in every classroom; (5) individual and group activities are interchangeable; and (6) the processes involved in the proposed merger of two seemingly diverse curricula, care and education, are less transparent to teachers. While the findings reported here offer insights for practitioners working in the field of early years care and education in Japan, they may prove of interest to academics, researchers and practitioners in other countries.

The Facilitation of Child Development in a Japanese Nursery School

Abstract This paper aims to explore the topic of facilitating children’s development in a Japanese day-care centre (hoikuen). The research is based on a case study with participant observation in the daycare facility Minami Ōsawa Nursery School in Tōkyō. After a short overview on preschool education in Japan and an introduction to Minami Ōsawa Nursery School, the three main topics of child development around the age of five years-cognitive, social-emotional and motor development- will be further explored. These three areas will be defined more precisely in the context of the selfproclaimed aims and daily routine of the hoikuen team. Furthermore the importance of a child’s autonomy is addressed.

Relationship between napping pattern and nocturnal sleep among Japanese nursery school children

It has been suggested that the daytime napping patterns of children differ according to racial and cultural backgrounds. The objectives of this study were to describe the daytime nap durations of Japanese nursery school children and to elucidate their relationship to nocturnal bedtimes. The mothers of 967 children between 0 and 5 years of age recorded sleep logs for 9 consecutive nights. Considering the fact that the subject children were scheduled to take a nap on weekday afternoons, we investigated the proportion of children napping and the relationship between daytime nap duration and nocturnal bedtime on the basis of the data obtained on weekends when children were free from a specific nap schedule. The percentage of children who habitually took a nap was 100% in those under 1 year old, and the percentages were 96.8%, 81.8%, 53.4%, 28.0%, and 9.0% in 1-, 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children, respectively. There were significant relationships between nap duration and bedtime in the corresponding night in 2- to 5-year-old children. The "two hours or more" nap group showed a significantly later bedtime than the "no nap" and the "one hour or more but less than two hours" groups in the 2-year-old children (p<0.01 for both). The "two hours or more" nap group showed a significantly later bedtime than the other groups (p<0.01), and the "one hour or more but less than two hours" nap group showed a significantly later bedtime than the "no nap" group in the 3-year-old children (p<0.05). In the 4- to 5-year-old children, the "one hour or more but less than two hours" and "two hours or more" nap groups showed a significantly later bedtime than the "no nap" group (p<0.01 for both). Daytime naps naturally become less common after the third birthday among Japanese nursery school children. The longer the nap durations in 2- to 5-year-old children, the later they went to bed on the corresponding night.