YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan — Hiroyasu Yamada knew there was a better way to help his two special needs sons.

As a Japanese civilian worker at Yokosuka, he was impressed with the approach base schools took to teaching special needs children. He wanted the same for Japanese children off base.

Three years ago Yamada, who was a member of the PTA at his children’s school, proposed that the teachers from The Sullivans School visit the Yokohama National University Handicapped School to see the Japanese way.

Now, yearly exchanges are made between Sullivans — where 13 percent of students are in special education classes — and various Japanese schools.

On Wednesday, Sullivans hosted special education teachers from Takeyama Yogo School and college students from Kanagawa University who are studying to be special education teachers.

One of the highlights was showing the visitors how special education students are integrated into general classes.

That’s something that impresses Yamada. Even though the Japanese education system has an inclusion policy, teachers really aren’t using it practically, he said.

“So I want to push [the Japanese government] for the inclusion,” Yamada said.

Sullivans special education teacher Tonya Denise Williams explained that placing the students in the general classes helps them.

“We want to prepare them for life, by interacting with kids in their peer group,” Williams said.

Williams said Sullivans teachers also were able to incorporate practices from the Japanese schools they visited. She said Sullivans started sign language and reading clubs for special needs children after seeing how the clubs worked at Japanese schools.

The visitors said they were impressed with the American teaching strategies.

“I think that the activities are very different and very student-directed,” said college student Chicka Kaneko, who visited with her sister.

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