Japan's Special Education And Its Enlightenment For China

The development level of special education is a significant index to measure the degree of a nation's civilization. Promoting the development of special education is also a necessity for building a harmonious society and furthering education equity. However, in our country's educational practice, special education is always neglected, receiving only limited attention. Our neighbor Japan has a long history of special education of more than a hundred years, having already built schools for the blind, the deaf and other kinds of disabled children before World WarⅡ. After World WarⅡ, the compulsory education for disabled children has been popularized and the quality of special education has continued to be improved. The system of special education has been perfected unceasingly, being reformed and innovated for the disabled children's healthy development of both physical and mental health. This paper uses historical research method, document investigation method and comparative research method to describe and analyze the historical development, current situation and characteristics of Japan's special education, in order to sum up its experience and lessons and to provide reference for a better construction and development of China's special education.The main part of this paper consists of three portions:The first portion describes the developing history of the education, divided by World War II, for children with visual impairments, hearing difficulties, intellectual disabilities, physical disabilities and health impairments in Japan, revealing the developing progress of special education in Japan from its birth to its popularization.The second portion expatiates the current situation of special education in Japan in five aspects-the object and placement system of special support education, the related laws and regulations, educational goal, contents and methods, the administration and other guarantee measures,& the training and appointing of teachers. Japan's special education has developed into a fairly and been brought into compulsory education system complete system after 60 years'progress since World WarⅡ. To make more progress in the new century and to realize Inclusive Education, Japan began a new reform to transform to special support education. The full implementation of the reform started from 2007, aiming to give appropriate guidance to disabled children according to their educational demands and to provide special educational support for the cultivation of their independence and social participation abilities. Hence, Japan's special education changed its name to "special support education".The third portion summarizes the five characteristics of Japan's special education-a high degree of popularity and quality, flexible and multiple placement system, developed laws and regulations, strict and orderly administration,& Standardized and comprehensive training and appointing of teachers. At last, this paper puts forward the enlightenment for China by using comparative research method-to build more special education institutions to meet the learning demands of disabled children, to reinforce the training of special education teachers, to improve the school conditions and the teaching quality of special education, and to increase funds invested in special education.