If someone at the health check, the nursery or the ward office has said the words jidō hattatsu shien to you, this page is for you. It is the Japanese public service for preschool children whose development needs extra support — and it is far more ordinary, and more accessible, than the name makes it sound.
Child development support (児童発達支援, jidō hattatsu shien) is a service under Japan's Child Welfare Act for children who have not yet started elementary school — roughly ages 0 to 6 — whose development is delayed or who have characteristics that make daily life, communication or group settings harder than usual.
A child attends a licensed classroom (事業所, jigyōsho) for regular sessions. A team of specialists — in our case speech-language therapists, certified public psychologists, psychiatric social workers, childcare workers and child instructors — works with the child on communication and language, play, daily-living skills, attention and readiness for group life. Parents are part of the process: the plan is built with you, and you are told what to practise at home.
The Japanese word you will hear alongside it is ryōiku (療育). It is a blend of "treatment" and "education" and simply means supporting a child's growth in the way that suits that child. Child development support is ryōiku delivered through a public system.
You do not need a diagnosis. Children with a diagnosis (for example autism spectrum disorder or ADHD), children with a delay but no diagnosis, and children in the so-called grey zone all attend. What matters is whether support would help your child now.
Typical starting points are: words are late or few, speech is unclear, back-and-forth conversation is hard, instructions are hard to follow, group settings such as daycare are difficult, or the child finds it hard to sit, wait or switch activities. For families growing up with more than one language, the first question is often "is this just bilingual development, or something more?" — we have a separate guide on that.
At our classroom a session lasts about two hours. Programs are built around one-to-one time with a therapist, combined with small-group time so that skills carry over into daycare and, later, school. Sessions are deliberately short so that your child can practise what they learned in everyday life the same day.
Every child has an individual support plan (個別支援計画). It is written by the classroom's child development support manager (児童発達支援管理責任者, usually shortened to jihatsukan) from an assessment of the child and from what you, the parents, want. You are walked through it, you agree to it, and it is reviewed regularly. Sessions themselves are conducted with the child and therapist only; parents wait outside the room.
Sessions at our classroom are in Japanese, and so are tours and consultations for families who can manage in Japanese. If your family cannot, our representative joins the first consultation — and the important conversations later — in English. See the main English page for the details.
You will see two similar names. A child development support centre (児童発達支援センター) is a larger hub, usually run by the ward, that also provides consultation and assessment for the whole area — in Shinjuku this is "Aiai" at the Children's General Centre. A child development support classroom (児童発達支援事業所) like ours is a licensed provider that families attend regularly. Most wards have one centre and many classrooms. Families often use the ward centre for assessment and a classroom for regular sessions; many also use more than one classroom.
Child development support sits alongside daycare and kindergarten, not instead of them. Many children attend daycare most of the week and a classroom like ours on one or two days. For children who struggle specifically in the group setting, there is a related service in which our specialists visit the daycare or kindergarten itself (保育所等訪問支援) — see the guide on daycare and kindergarten support.
In the year before elementary school, the ward's school-entry consultation (就学相談) looks at which class is right for your child. Child development support does not decide that — but the preschool years are where the language and group-life skills your child will need at school are built. We have a separate guide on school entry.
Because it is a Child Welfare Act service, the public system pays 90% of the cost and the family pays 10%, with a monthly cap set by household income — and for most preschool years the family share is zero. To use it regularly your child needs a certificate from the ward or city where they are registered as a resident. Both are explained in the guides on the certificate and on fees.
Sources: Children and Families Agency — user fees for children's services (Japanese) · Shinjuku City — Children's General Centre / Child Development Support Centre "Aiai" (Japanese) · Shinjuku City foreign-language site — disability welfare (English)
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You do not need a diagnosis, a certificate, or fluent Japanese to take the first step. Send us a message in English, tell us your child's age and what you are noticing about their speech and language, and we will take it from there.
