The Open University Chais 2009

1. The Open University Chais 2009

2. The Impact of Assistive Technologies on the Reading Outcomes of College Students with Disabilities Gotesman Edith PhD Goldfus Carol PhD Levinsky College of Education

3. Aim of the Study The investigation is designed to validate the competency of Assistive Technology to solve the problem of students at risk, namely students with learning disabilities.

4. Who Are Students with Learning Disabilities? LD students are learning-disabled/learning-disadvantaged students experiencing one or several of the following impairments: • Dyslexia—a language disorder primarily affecting the ability to read fluently • Dyscalculia—a learning disorder demonstrated by a pooraptitude with figures • Dysgraphia—alanguage disorder that affects the ability to write

5. Dyslexia Dyslexia refers to a "difficulty in learning to read in a person who has good intelligence, strong motivation, and who has received appropriate teaching". Sally Shaywitz (2003)

6. Assistive Technology Assistive technology - AT – is defined as: “any technology that enables an individual with a learning disability to compensate for specific deficits.” (Raskind and Higgins,1998)

7. Research on AT and LD “The use of technology has been shown to be effective in a wide range of content areas.” (Ashton, 2005; Edyburn, 2004; Okolo, Cavalier, Ferretti, & MacArthur, 2000).

8. word recognition, reading comprehension, spelling and reading strategies(Raskind & Higgins, 1999); • spelling (Dalton, Winbury & Morocco, 1990, MacArthur, Graham, Haynes & DeLapaz, 1996); • organizing, reading and synthesizing information (Anderson, Inman, Knox-Quinn & Homey, 1996, Anderson, Inman, Knox-Quinn & Szymanski, 1999); • proofreading(Raskind & Higgins, 1995); • writing (Raskind & Higgins, 1995); • decoding, comprehension and reading with fluency (Elkind, Cohen & Murray 1993, Higgins & Raskind, 2000).

9. Types of Assistive Technologies

10. Selecting the Appropriate AT Raskind & Higgins (1998) and Raskind (1998)

11. STUDENTS’ NEED Decoding Reading comprehension Handwriting Expressing words in written form Spelling Organization ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY Text-to-speech programs Speech-to-text programs Word processors Word prediction programs Proofreading programs Outlining/brainstorming programs Matching AT to Students’ Specific Needs

12. Our Research

13. Methodology • Participants: 14 LD students at the Levinsky College of Education • Duration: 2006-2008; • Design: pre-test, intervention, post-test • Independent variable: computer-based reading software • Dependent variable: reading comprehension skills, attitude toward reading and AT.

14. LD Students’ Achievement

15. LD Students’ Scores 2006-2008

16. AT Helped LD Students • decode/read texts in English by significantly gaining in word recognition and reading comprehension; • improve their reading fluency; • learn, apply, develop, maintain and generalize new reading strategies; • become motivated to read in English; • increase their level of participation in class or home assignments; • achieve better grades; • be better prepared to read articles in their individual field of study.

17. AT to Consider

18. Thank you for listening!