Reading Instruction for Students with Significant Cognitive Disabilities

1. Reading Instruction for Students with Significant Cognitive Disabilities Carly Roberts

2. Background • Reading instruction for students with moderate to severe developmental disabilities has an overemphasis on sight words and lacks a clear focus • It is difficult to focus on authentic reading and beginning skills during adolescence when the focus is often on transition skills • Middle school students with severe disabilities may not have skills to engage with books • You can adapt age appropriate novels/books to create meaningful literacy lessons • Systematic prompting procedures (time delay) are used to teach sight words but can also be incorporated in story based lessons • Task analyses can be incorporated into lesson plan formats

3. The Article • Browder, D. M., Trela, K., & Jimenez, B. (2007). Training teachers to follow a task analysis to engage middle school students with moderate and severe developmental disabilities in grade-appropriate literature. Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, 22, 206-219.

4. Purpose • Train teachers to monitor their own use of a task analysis for sharing literature typical of middle school language arts and to promote the skills of the participating students for engaging with books • Modify age-appropriate books and lessons using the Universal Design for Learning approach • Teachers use systematic prompting to engage students in a story

5. Teacher Participants • Teachers who served middle school students with moderate or severe intellectual disabilities or autism • Teachers certified in special education • Limited literacy preparation

6. Student Participants • 6 students total • Non-readers • Verbal or non-verbal • IQ below 55 • 12-14 years old • 2 used AAC

7. Design • Single-subject design • Multiple-probe across participants • Data taken on teacher behavior and student behavior • Three phases • Prebaseline prior to training • Baseline after general training • Observations after intervention

8. Procedures • Adapted grade level novels • Text modified • Symbols added • Vocabulary definitions embedded within • Utilized story retelling • Created Task Analyses • Teachers used lesson plan format and followed steps on the task analyses

9. Example of Adapted Text

10. Lesson Plan Task Analysis

11. Results • All three teachers improved their percentage of steps accurately followed for the task analysis when the template was provided • All 6 students significantly increased their number of independent responses during literacy lessons • Teachers reported satisfaction with the intervention

12. Teachers • Pre-baseline: literacy instruction as usual • Baseline: attended literacy instruction workshop, planned lesson with general education teacher, given adapted books • Intervention: trained using lesson plan task analysis • How effective was the intervention?

13. Students • Independent responses during literacy lessons • How effective was the intervention?

14. Important Big Ideas • Story based lessons are a way to increase meaningful participation of students in literacy lessons • Adapting grade level books can make these lessons age appropriate for adolescents • Task analytic instruction and systematic prompting can be used in literacy lessons for students with moderate to severe disabilities • Task analyses can help teachers monitor their own instruction

15. Some questions to consider… • Does this strategy seem practitioner friendly? • In this study, the interventionists modified the books, would teachers be able to do this? Do they have the time? • Do you think self-monitoring by teachers leads to better educational outcomes for students? What are other ways they can do this besides the task analyses? • Can teachers incorporate this strategy in an inclusive environment? • What are other ways in which we can engage students with moderate to severe disabilities in meaningful literacy instruction?

16. Some questions to consider… • Are there ways to adapt other grade level appropriate materials for students with significant cognitive disabilities? • How do we currently prepare teachers to teach reading to students with significant cognitive disabilities? What implications do these findings have on the way we prepare pre-service teachers?