Reading comprehension difficulties experienced by students with learning disabilities

Abstract

Students with learning disabilities often experience poor comprehension due to their failure to read strategically and to spontaneously monitor their understanding while reading. This paper discusses in relation to current literature, the various problems with reading comprehension commonly experienced by students with learning disabilities. Specifically, these students may encounter problems in: (A) using background knowledge appropriately; (B) decoding and word recognition; (C) vocabulary knowledge; (D) fluency; (E) strategy use and metacognitive skills; and (F) differentiating between common text structures.     

Story composition skills of middle-grade students with learning disabilities

This study examined the story composition abilities of learning disabled (LD) and normally achieving young adolescents as indicated by measures of writing category, cohesion, and fluency. Findings suggest that although adolescents with learning disabilities have a rudimentary knowledge of story form, this knowledge is less well developed than that of their nondisabled peers. Students with learning disabilities also had greater coherence problems in their writing and were less fluent writers. Several important age trends were noted when results of this investigation were compared with outcomes from a similar investigation involving younger students.     

Study skills and the education of students with learning disabilities

This article discusses an area of education for students with learning disabilities that is often neglected. The topic of study skills education, although not new to education in general, has only recently been emphasized in the literature for students with handicaps. An overview of the study skill proficiency (or lack of it) of students with learning disabilities is provided, followed by the presentation of 15 student study skill strategies designed to assist students in their use of various study skills. These strategies may be employed appropriately and effectively with many students with learning disabilities provided that individual needs and abilities are considered. The article concludes with a discussion about the implementation of a study skills program, including guidelines to follow in this process.     

Visual and auditory coding confusability in students with and without learning disabilities

The nature of visual and auditory coding processes in students with learning disabilities (SLDs) and student controls (SCs) was examined with a letter-matching task on four types of successively presented letter pairs: identical (A,A), visually confusable (P,R), auditorily confusable (F,S), and neither visually nor auditorily confusable (N,T). Two delay intervals (0 and 2 seconds) were used between the presentation of the first and second letters. Analysis of decision latencies on the nonidentical letter pair trials revealed that with initial exposure to the task, the SLDs responded more slowly than SCs, but their general confusability patterns (visual and auditory) were similar. With additional practice, overall decision latencies were comparable for the two groups, while confusability differences emerged: SCs showed maximal visual confusability at a 0-second delay and maximal auditory confusability at a 2-second delay, while SLDs did not. Evidently, SLDs make less extensive use of visual and auditory coding processes compared to SCs.     

Social skills of Slovenian primary school students with learning disabilities

Social skills of students with special needs play a very important role in their successful integration into inclusive learning environments. The aim of present empirical research was to establish whether students with learning disabilities (LD) attending grades 7–9 of regular primary school in Slovenia experience difficulties in social skills compared to their peers without LD. The following measuring instruments were used: the Questionnaire about Interpersonal Difficulties for Adolescents, the Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents and the Self-Concept Scale. The basic research findings indicated statistically significant structural differences between the students with LD and their peers. The two groups differ in terms of difficulties in social interaction. Students with LD experience more difficulties. Statistically significant differences between the groups also appeared in tension and inhibition in social contact and social anxiety, as well as in the area of self-concept: students with LD are more anxious and reserved in social contacts.     

Story grammar and comprehension and production of narrative prose by students with learning disabilities

This study investigated both quantitative and qualitative differences between subjects with and without learning disabilities (LD) across three grade levels on two tasks requiring active processing of story grammar. There was no evidence, for either task, of developmental differences in relation to either story comprehension or production. However, there were significant differences between students with LD and normally achieving students in the amount as well as the type of information included in the retellings and written stories. The results provide support for the hypothesis that students with LD have acquired a rudimentary but not fully developed schema for narrative prose.     

Reading comprehension instruction: summarization and self-monitoring training for students with learning disabilities.

Forty-five middle-school students with learning disabilities were randomly assigned to one of three reading-comprehension training conditions: (a) summarization training, (b) summarization training with a self-monitoring component, or (c) traditional instruction. All students were interviewed before and after training regarding the strategies they typically employ during reading comprehension; during one training session, "think aloud" protocols were collected. Results indicated that students with learning disabilities trained in summarization procedures performed statistically higher on all dependent measures. In addition, on some transfer measures, students who were trained in the monitoring component statistically outperformed those with only the summarization training.     

Using visual strategies simultaneously to support students with learning disabilities in mathematics

We provide insight into how multiple visual strategies can be used simultaneously to increase access to and success with challenging mathematics at the secondary level for students with learning disabilities. Drawing on a teaching philosophy based on recognising student strengths and needs, we argue the potential benefits of using visual strategies during instruction and intervention to best meet student needs. Examples from our work with a high school student with a learning disability are presented to provide insight into how visual strategies can increase understanding and success with mathematics as it becomes more abstract at the secondary level. We urge practitioners and researchers to explore the benefits of incorporating simultaneous visual strategies into secondary mathematics learning.     

The relationship between achievement and IQ in students with learning disabilities

To investigate the relationship between achievement and IQ in the learning-disabled (LD) population, changes in the IQ scores of LD students from the early elementary grades to the high school grades were studied. The intercorrelations among those IQ scores and a variety of achievement scores were then explored for the purpose of ascertaining causal relationships. The results were interpreted as support for the contention that the underachievement of LD students (in particular, reading underachievement) plays a predominant causal role in the achievement-IQ relationship in this population.     

The effects of summarization instruction on text comprehension of students with learning disabilities.

This study examined the effectiveness of a summarization strategy for increasing comprehension of expository prose in students with learning disabilities. Thirty students with learning disabilities from Grades 6 through 9 were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. In addition, 15 students without disabilities served as a normal comparison group for comprehension. Students in the experimental condition were trained to criterion on five rules of summarization. Direct instruction in the summarization strategy significantly increased reading comprehension of the students in the experimental group. Strategy usage was maintained over time, and students were reported to generalize its use.     

Generic skills assessment: A new problem for tertiary students with learning disabilities

Abstract

A simmering controversy has been running in the United States since 1995 over the perceived conflict between the maintenance of academic standards and the rights of disabled university students. Recent developments are set to raise the same issue in Australian universities. The first of these developments is the shift in the emphasis of academic standards with the implementation of the Generic Skills Assessment (GSA) program. The second is the release of draft disability standards for education to streamline enforcement of the Commonwealth's Disability Discrimination Act (DDA).

The DDA protects disabled people against discrimination in education. Amongst the many types of disabled people protected are those who are unable to read, write or communicate effectively because of learning disabilities, and others who are unable to concentrate and pay attention properly because of mental disorders. Hitherto, universities have found ways to comply with the DDA without compromising academic standards by providing these types of disabled students with accommodations that take the form of alternative methods of examination, extra exam time, technological assistance, scribes, readers, etc. However, the GSA has been designed for standardised implementation and doesn't allow for this type of flexibility. Further, generic skills testing specifically discriminates against students with learning disabilities and some mental disorders because it is the inability to master particular types of generic skills that defines these types of disabilities.     

Reading comprehension strategy instruction and attribution retraining for secondary students with learning and other mild disabilities

A pre-post experimental design with 6-week delayed posttest was implemented to investigate the effects of reading comprehension strategy (RCS) instruction with and without attribution retraining (AR) on reading outcomes for seventh, eighth, and ninth graders with learning and other mild disabilities. Students were randomly assigned to one of three treatments: RCS+AR, RCS, or a Read Naturally (Ihnot, 1992) comparison condition. Results indicated that compared to the comparison group, both strategy instruction groups performed better on a summarization measure of comprehension after treatment producing large effect sizes. Both groups also performed better after a 6-week delay; however, only the RCS+AR group maintained a large effect size. In addition, RCS+AR students displayed higher attributions for reading success at post- and delayed posttesting. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.     

Vocational education and students with learning disabilities

This inquiry focuses on the status of nearly 500 students with learning disabilities in 17 state-operated regional vocational-technical schools in a northeastern state. The inquiry addressed four primary concerns: patterns of assessment, career choice, school marks, and attendance. The data indicate that a variety of instruments were used in the assessment process and that the overall grade equivalent levels of attainment ranged between fifth- and seventh-grade levels. Children defined as learning disabled participated in a large number of vocational trade specialties and some 50% or more had school marks indicating that they were passing in these areas. Attendance was high. Many children with learning disabilities successfully perform in competitive vocational education programs designed to produce proficiency at the level of journey person.     

The effect of using laptops on the spelling skills of students with learning disabilities

The current study examined the effect of using laptops on the spelling skills of students with learning disabilities (LD). It was conducted as part of the Israeli “Katom” (A Computer for Every Class, Student, and Teacher) Program. Participants included 93 Hebrew-speaking students with LD aged 13–16, who attend 10 special education classes in a regular middle school. We examined whether the experimental group using laptops showed significant differences in the number of their spelling errors as a result of the intervention on their pre- and post-spelling tests. We also investigated whether there would be differences on the number of spelling errors between the experimental and control groups, as measured by their pre- and post-spelling test results. The findings indicated that the participants in the experimental group significantly improved their spelling skills as opposed to the control group. It seems that the use of laptops in special education classes can enhance the spelling skills of students with LD.