Human Anatomy and Physiology is one of the basic professional courses for students majored in special education in normal colleges. It is of great importance to develop a comprehensive curriculum and improve the associated teaching approaches. In recent years, we have taken a series of approaches including optimizing the teaching content, highlighting the curriculum value, diversifying the teaching methods, and improving the evaluation methods. These approaches have received good effects and responses. Here we summarize the experiences and share our insights with colleagues.
Curriculum ; Education, Special ; Humans ; Students ; Universities

On September 12, 2018, President Jae-In Moon announced the Comprehensive Plan for Lifelong Care for People with Developmental Disabilities, with representatives from the associated government branches (Ministry of Health and Welfare, Ministry of Education, and Ministry of Employment and Labor) in attendance. The goals of this plan are to provide health, medical, rehabilitative, special education, and social welfare services according to the life-stages of the affected individuals; to reduce parental pressure; to promote social interventions; and to enhance community-level participation in order to create a ‘welfare society in harmony.’ However, in order for the plan to succeed, additional efforts must be made in the following areas. First, an epidemiological survey is needed to understand the scale, prevalence, and incidence of developmental disabilities and to establish an evidence base to support policy development. Second, accurate definitions of developmental disabilities must be established in order to avoid policy discrimination based on impairment type and age. Third, personal evaluations to assess disabled individuals' unmet needs and customized service designs to deliver those needs are required. Fourth, the plan must fulfill the goals of accessibility and fairness that the government intends to provide. Fifth, the government should consider an integrated financial support system and to propose a detailed plan for monetary distributions. Finally, an integrated system that links health, medical, employment, educational, and welfare services must be constructed.
Comprehensive Health Care ; Developmental Disabilities ; Discrimination (Psychology) ; Education ; Education, Special ; Employment ; Financial Support ; Humans ; Incidence ; Intellectual Disability ; Moon ; Parents ; Policy Making ; Prevalence ; Social Welfare

BACKGROUND: This article intended to identify and describe areas in need of services and interventions for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and their families in Seoul, Korea. METHODS: A descriptive comparison was made between available services and interventions in Seoul, Korea and Massachusetts, USA. Relevant information was obtained through sending phone/email inquiries to the governments and organizations, visiting their official websites, and searching for published articles or reports. RESULTS: In a few areas such as level of education, economy, and general quality of healthcare, Seoul was found to be similar to Massachusetts. However, in terms of services and interventions for individuals with ASD and their families, especially early identification and intervention, special education, care coordination, school-based programs, and transition to adulthood, Massachusetts was shown to have far more availability. CONCLUSION: The limited availability of services and interventions for individuals with ASD and their families in Seoul in comparison to Massachusetts, underlines target areas for further investment and development.
Autism Spectrum Disorder ; Autistic Disorder ; Education ; Education, Special ; Humans ; Investments ; Korea ; Massachusetts ; Quality of Health Care ; Seoul

PURPOSE: Patient education is a dynamic and continuous process that should be implemented during the entire time of hospital stay and even afterward. Studies have shown the typically poor quality of patient education in Iran and its failure to convey the required knowledge and skills to patients. The purpose of this study was to survey the experience of nursing students in regard to the challenges of patient education in hospitals. METHODS: This qualitative study was conducted using the conventional qualitative content analysis approach on a sample of 21 undergraduate nursing students (4th semester and beyond), which was drawn from the Qom Nursing and Midwifery School through purposive sampling with maximum variation. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews conducted over a period of 45 to 75 minutes, and were analyzed using the conventional qualitative content analysis. RESULTS: Results were derived from the experiences of 21 nursing students (nine males, 12 females) about the research subject. The primary themes identified in the study were the student-related, patient-related, instructor-related, education environment-related, and curriculum-related barriers to patient educations. CONCLUSION: Participants believed that patient education in Iranian hospitals is faced with many challenges. Nursing instructors and curriculum planners should ensure more emphasis on patient education at the initial semesters of nursing education curriculum and make sure that it is included in the evaluation of students. Hospital officials should provide a dedicated education environment with suitable facilities, tools, and atmosphere for patient education. Also, special education programs need to be developed for less educated patients.
Atmosphere ; Curriculum ; Education ; Education, Nursing ; Education, Special ; Humans ; Iran* ; Length of Stay ; Male ; Midwifery ; Nursing* ; Patient Education as Topic* ; Qualitative Research ; Research Subjects ; Students, Nursing*

OBJECTIVES: To initiate and develop a treatment guideline in multidisciplinary approaches for related professions who are either working and/or living with children and adolescents with neurodevelopmental disorders who show behavioral problems. METHODS: To collect and reflect opinions from multiple professions who assumedly have different interventions or mediations on behavioral problems, a self-report survey and Focus Group Interview (FGI) were conducted for a group of child and adolescent psychiatrists, behavioral therapists, special education teachers, social welfare workers, and caregivers. RESULTS: According to a self-report survey and FGI results from multiple professional groups, aggressive behavior is the mostly common behavioral problem necessitating urgent interventions. However, both mainly used intervention strategies and effective treatment methods were different depending on professional backgrounds, such as pharmacological treatment, parent training, and behavior therapy, even though they shared an importance of improving communication skills. In addition, there was a common understanding of necessity to include parent training in a guideline. Lastly the data suggested lack of proper treatment facilities, qualified behavior therapists, and lack of standardized treatment guideline in the field needed to be improved for a quality of current therapeutic services. CONCLUSION: It is supported that several subjects should be included in the guidelines, such as how to deal with aggressive behavior, parent training, and biological aspects of neurodevelopmental disorders. Also, it is expected that publishing the guideline would be helpful to above multiple professions as it is investigated that there are lack of treatment facility and qualified behavioral therapists compared to need at the moment.
Adolescent* ; Autistic Disorder ; Behavior Therapy ; Caregivers ; Child* ; Developmental Disabilities ; Education, Special ; Focus Groups ; Humans ; Negotiating* ; Neurodevelopmental Disorders* ; Parents ; Problem Behavior* ; Psychiatry ; Social Welfare

There have been many achievements for 40 years since the introduction of compulsory health insurance. Despite many achievements, it has many challenges in health insurance. Aging, non-communicable disease, and low growth economy are threatening the sustainability of health insurance, and it is time to reform the health insurance. A long-term reform plan will be an absolute necessity for reform of health insurance and health care system. Health insurance and health care reform should be an extremely revolutionary content that completely changes the framework. This reform should deal with the philosophy of health, approach of medical education and doctor training, changing supply of medical service, the innovation of primary medical care, reform of public health system, the management of medical utilization, the integration of medical cure and care services, enhancing the benefit coverage, prohibition of covered and non-covered services, etc. Therefore, it is urgent to form a consensus on the necessity of reform, to establish the health insurance plan on this consensus, and to make efforts to make health insurance sustainable.
Aging ; Anniversaries and Special Events* ; Consensus ; Delivery of Health Care ; Education, Medical ; Health Care Reform ; Insurance, Health* ; Philosophy ; Public Health

OBJECTIVES: Early intensive interventions are very important for children with autism spectrum disorder. We examined the actual conditions of hospital-based early intensive interventions for autism spectrum disorder in Seoul, in order to help develop and implement an evidence-based early intensive intervention model for use in Korea. METHODS: Nine hospital-based institutes running an early intensive intervention program for children with autism spectrum disorder responded to a questionnaire in September 2014. They provided a brief introduction to their program, explained its theoretical bases, and reported the number of children, their age, intervention time, duration and so on. RESULTS: In the majority of the institutions, the intervention was provided for over 20 hours every week, and the theoretical bases included various applied behavioral analysis (ABA) methods and other therapies (language and occupational therapy). The therapist-child ratio ranged from 1:1 to 5:3. Various types of therapists were involved, including behavioral analysts, special education teachers and (or) language pathologists. There was only one clinic where the behavioral analyst was the main therapist. Usually, the intervention was terminated just before the child entered elementary school. The main merit of the hospital-based intervention in our survey was the effectiveness of the multi-disciplinary intervention plan and its other merits were the accuracy of the diagnosis, its ability to be combined with medicine, and so on. CONCLUSION: The current hospital-based early intensive intervention programs provide interventions for over 20 hours per week and employ multidisciplinary approaches. However, there are very few institutes for children with autism and very few intervention specialists and specialist education courses in the country. We need more educational programs for intervention therapists and have to try to develop policies which encourage the implementation of an evidence-based early intensive intervention program nationwide.
Academies and Institutes ; Autism Spectrum Disorder* ; Autistic Disorder* ; Child ; Diagnosis ; Education ; Education, Special ; Humans ; Korea* ; Running ; Seoul ; Specialization

OBJECTIVE: This study aims to describe the knowledge and attitude of parents toward their mentally retarded child enrolled for special education in an elementary in Manila.
METHODOLOGY: Using a Tagalog version of the 25 item Index of Parent Attitude (IPA) was used to measure the parents' relationship problems with and their attitude towards their special child. A score below 30 meant that there was no clinically significant problem in tghe parent child relationship, while a score above 30 meant there was a problem and a score above 70 meant parents experienced severe stress with the potential to becoming violent towards their children. A 10 item Knowledge Questionnaire Regarding Mental Retardation (KQMR) answerable by True or False, was also drafted in Taglog. A linguist was consulted to translate and back translate both questionnaires. A score of 1-4 was considered as having poor knowledge, 5-7 good and 8-10 as having excellent knowledge. Consent from the principal of Sta. Ana Elementary School and from parents of mentally retarded children was requested to conduct the study. Parents who had accompanied their children to school and were present at the tiem of study was conducted were included in the study once they agreed to participate. Those who were found to have low scores in th KQMR were invited for 2 Focused Group Discussions (FGD) that lasted for 2 hours each; during with the psychiatrist in training explored their difficulties in managing their mentally retarded children.
RESULTS: Sixty parents agreed to participate in answering the questionnaires and only 18 parents joined the FGD sessions. Based on the IPA 41 (68.33%) were identified as having a significantly problematic attitude towards their child; 16 (26.67%) had no significant problems and 3 (5.0%) had the tendency to become violent towards their child. Forty six (76.67%) were considered to have poor level of knowledge regarding Mental Retardation while 14 (23.33%) had good fund of knowledge and no one had excellent scores. It was mostly the mothers (55 or 91.67%)  who were in school to respond to the questionnaire, most of whom were married (55 or 91.67%) and all of them were more than 30 years old; 43 (71.67%) were unemployed. Fifty percent had a monthly income less than 5000.00 PhP, 40% had 5-10 thousand PhP and 10% had 10,000.00 PhP or more monthly income. Fifty five (91.67%) were high school graduates while 18 or 30% had reached college level. Fifty six (93.33%) were Roman Catholics. From the KQMR many (68%) considered that all mentally retarded children are similar in characteristics and behavior, 70% didn't think that medications could control behavioral changes and 80% didn't think psychiatrist could help in dealing with behavioral or maladaptive changes of such children, while 60% believed that all  types of mental retardation are hereditary. On the other hand 87% were correct in disagreeing with the statement that mentally retarded children become Schizophrenic and 83% considered that the behaviorial changes among mentally retarded children are similar to those of other children.
CONCLUSION: Although some had an accurate understanding about mental retardation most were misinformed, thus the urgent need to educate all parents i.e. both fathers and mothers and perhaps even other members of the family about mental retardation- its causes, complications and how their children could be better managed at home and in school.

PURPOSE: This study aimed to evaluate the effects of lifestyle modifications on the constipation relief, the time required to see the effects, and the effective lifestyles for constipation in older adults admitted to a geriatric hospital. METHODS: Nonequivalent control group pre-post test design was used. The subjects consisted of 25 elderly in the control group and 23 in the experimental group. Constipation was measured with symptoms of constipation, number of bowel movement and use of laxatives. Life style modification consisted of drinking water before breakfast, having a breakfast, scheduled toileting after breakfast and walking everyday for 3 weeks. RESULTS: Symptoms of constipation (t=2.23, p=.030) and number of bowel movement per week (t=-2.55, p=.014) were significantly different between two groups after 3 weeks. Drinking water, scheduled toileting and walking might contribute to the results. CONCLUSION: Lifestyle modification was effective on constipation in older adults admitted to a geriatric hospital. However, the effects were produced after 3 weeks. Nevertheless, it is recommended that nurses continuously encourage older adults for drinking water, regular trying for bowel movement and walking to relieve constipation, since the lifestyle modification does not need any special education and skill.
Adult* ; Aged ; Breakfast ; Constipation* ; Drinking Water ; Education, Special ; Evaluation Studies as Topic ; Humans ; Laxatives ; Life Style* ; Walking

OBJECTIVE: This study aims to describe the knowledge and attitude of parents toward their mentally retarded child enrolled for special education in an elementary in Manila.
METHODOLOGY: Using a Tagalog version of the 25 item Index of Parent Attitude (IPA) was used to measure the parents' relationship problems with and their attitude towards their special child. A score below 30 meant that there was no clinically significant problem in tghe parent child relationship, while a score above 30 meant there was a problem and a score above 70 meant parents experienced severe stress with the potential to becoming violent towards their children. A 10 item Knowledge Questionnaire Regarding Mental Retardation (KQMR) answerable by True or False, was also drafted in Taglog. A linguist was consulted to translate and back translate both questionnaires. A score of 1-4 was considered as having poor knowledge, 5-7 good and 8-10 as having excellent knowledge. Consent from the principal of Sta. Ana Elementary School and from parents of mentally retarded children was requested to conduct the study. Parents who had accompanied their children to school and were present at the tiem of study was conducted were included in the study once they agreed to participate. Those who were found to have low scores in th KQMR were invited for 2 Focused Group Discussions (FGD) that lasted for 2 hours each; during with the psychiatrist in training explored their difficulties in managing their mentally retarded children.
RESULTS: Sixty parents agreed to participate in answering the questionnaires and only 18 parents joined the FGD sessions. Based on the IPA 41 (68.33%) were identified as having a significantly problematic attitude towards their child; 16 (26.67%) had no significant problems and 3 (5.0%) had the tendency to become violent towards their child. Forty six (76.67%) were considered to have poor level of knowledge regarding Mental Retardation while 14 (23.33%) had good fund of knowledge and no one had excellent scores. It was mostly the mothers (55 or 91.67%)  who were in school to respond to the questionnaire, most of whom were married (55 or 91.67%) and all of them were more than 30 years old; 43 (71.67%) were unemployed. Fifty percent had a monthly income less than 5000.00 PhP, 40% had 5-10 thousand PhP and 10% had 10,000.00 PhP or more monthly income. Fifty five (91.67%) were high school graduates while 18 or 30% had reached college level. Fifty six (93.33%) were Roman Catholics. From the KQMR many (68%) considered that all mentally retarded children are similar in characteristics and behavior, 70% didn't think that medications could control behavioral changes and 80% didn't think psychiatrist could help in dealing with behavioral or maladaptive changes of such children, while 60% believed that all  types of mental retardation are hereditary. On the other hand 87% were correct in disagreeing with the statement that mentally retarded children become Schizophrenic and 83% considered that the behaviorial changes among mentally retarded children are similar to those of other children.
CONCLUSION: Although some had an accurate understanding about mental retardation most were misinformed, thus the urgent need to educate all parents i.e. both fathers and mothers and perhaps even other members of the family about mental retardation- its causes, complications and how their children could be better managed at home and in school.