Approach to the Educational Needs of Severe Motor and Intellectual Disabilities by Visiting Education

To allow children and students with intellectual disabilities to lead an independent life, because we can assume that the commute to school will practice the utilization of public transportation, it is necessary to ensure the safety of the school route from the closest bus stop or station. In Sweden, it is common for children with disabilities to attend ordinary schools, commuting by public transportation. Furthermore, from 1997 with the implementation of the ‘vision zero’ traffic security policy, a barrier free environment is implemented according to the surrounding environment, not only in the vicinity of schools. In this study, in Sweden with the lowest amount of the approximately 10 000 deaths among the OECD member-nations implementing a barrier free environment in the vicinity of schools, a field study of the actual situation is conducted, with the objective of gaining knowledge on how to improve the barrier free environment in the vicinity of schools. At the pedestrian crossings in the city of Boras, there are safety zones installed midway, and because the roadway turns narrower closer to the pedestrian crossings drivers naturally slow down. The road material at pedestrian crossings is different from ordinary roads, and cases of the pedestrian crossings being raised acting as speed humps to reduce vehicle speeds was also observed. At crossways in the vicinity of schools, roundabouts are installed to reduce vehicles speeds at accident-prone crossways. Moreover, an investigation of speed limits, the situation of road signs as well as traffic lights, neighboring location, pedestrian count, vehicle count, and main type of vehicles, summarizing the actual situation of the surrounding barrier free environment is conducted. intellectual disability, barrier free, school commute, public transportation, Sweden *corresponding author: atanaka@edu.u-ryukyu.ac.jp (Atsushi TANAKA) Total Rehabilitation Research, 2015, 2:95-105. © 2015 Asian Society of Human Services Received November 16, 2014 Accepted January 13, 2015 Published February 28, 2015