1. Introduction
Most experts in the field of education for children with special needs agree that the earlier adapted support is provided to children who need it, the better the results. Parents of such children, however, very often cannot recognize their disabilities at an early stage. In particular, if the child is their first child, parents have no basis for comparison to normal developmental patterns. Moreover, parents often prefer to adopt a positive stance with regards to the difficulties encountered by their child, which can prevent them from recognizing and accepting the disability for what it is.
In the nursery school, because teachers take care of children in the group, it is much easier to detect the disability of a child. The nursery teachers are specialists for nursing children from 0 to 6 years. In Japan, they must have obtained a diploma in order to work. In the diploma course, teachers learn about basic disabilities. However just with basic knowledge it is impossible for them to take care of behaviourally maladjusted children. Moreover, they often have no idea where to get advice for providing special care to both the child and the parents. If we could make a better system for guidance and supervision of nursery school teachers, we believe that so many children could get better treatment for their difficulties.
2. Case description: public nursery school (I. hoikuen) in Ishikawa, Japan.
A boy without previous history of trouble became very dangerous from age 3. He would panic all the time and attack everyone.