A 36-year-old man with physical disabilities has been working to help schools understand that children with special needs should be allowed to attend regular classes if they wish to do so.

Takashi Ono, who has cerebral palsy, a form of brain damage stemming from premature birth, can hardly move his body parts nor speak. Yet, he is capable of communicating his thoughts by writing a message with his index finger on the palm of a caretaker's hand.

In late May, Ono, who uses a wheelchair, met with parents of children going to Ida Elementary School in Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, near Tokyo, in one of his recent efforts to raise awareness.

"Children with speech disorders, like me, can attend regular classes if they learn to communicate," his mother Kimiko, 71, said on behalf of Ono.

Born and raised in Tokyo's Nakano Ward, Ono was enrolled at a neighborhood elementary and junior high schools along with other children from the same community.

"I sat at the front row, the closest seat to the teacher, and my classmates came and talked to me whenever a class ended," Ono was quoted by the mother as saying. "What I needed was just a bit of thoughtfulness like that which they showed to me."

"I treasure the experience with those neighborhood peers and that is why I can still be connected with them," he said.

But his life changed dramatically after he entered a senior high school for the disabled, where he was perceived as having serious intellectual disabilities.

"The classes there were taught as though they were for kindergarteners and I had basically no chance to learn," his mother said quoting him.

In December 2006, the U.N. General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which specifies they should not be excluded from the general educational system. The convention constitutes a basis of the concept of inclusive education.

Japan has ratified the convention in line with its Constitution's Article 26 stating that all people should have the right to have an equal education.

Until several years ago, children diagnosed as having serious disabilities during a preschool health checkup and evaluation process were principally sent to special schools.

"Some people with disabilities may choose to attend special classes, but what's important is that each of us has the freedom to choose," Ono said.

Jumpei Ota, 26, who also suffers from cerebral palsy, has been promoting inclusive education by drawing lessons from other countries' education for the disabled.

Ota, who attended special schools, said he had to give up on his dream of going to university because he could not receive sufficient education.

Six years ago, he learned in one seminar for people with disabilities that there are no special schools in Italy and asked his mother Hiroe, now 59, to help him research the country's educational system.

Ota, who communicates by pointing to letters on a hiragana chart, then found that the European nation provides inclusive education in every phase from nursery to university and that an appropriate educational program is prepared to fit an individual's ability.

"I wondered why Japan cannot realize what has already been done in Italy," Ota said. "Any child has the right to have an education and give us a decent one."

He now often appears in gatherings of people with disabilities and their supporters to raise awareness of the issue and hopes to visit Italy one day in the near future.