DOI: 10.23662/fors-ds-1221-1
title: Data of an RCT study on the effects of a phonics-based intervention on the reading skills of students with intellectual disability

description: In a first step, we conducted a study that aimed to describe special education teachers’ current reading instruction practices in self-contained classrooms for elementary school students with intellectual disability, as well as to identify the main ressources and obstacles that they face. In a second step, we created a research-based phonics-based reading program in French to help these teachers to teach reading skills to their students more effectively. We pre-tested this reading program in four classrooms, and improved it thanks to the feedbacks of the teachers that implemented it during several months and the researchers' observations of lessons. In a third step, we conducted a study with pre-test and post-test and random allocation of the participants in a treatment group and control group to assess the effect of our phonics-based reading program on the reading skills of students with intellectual disability.
description: Ce projet de recherche avait pour objectif de combler plusieurs lacunes dans l’état actuel des connaissances sur l’enseignement-apprentissage de la lecture-écriture chez les élèves avec une déficience intellectuelle (DI). Il avait également pour but de développer, avec et pour des enseignant·e·s, un moyen d’enseignement de la lecture efficace pour ces élèves. Dans un premier temps, nous avons mené une étude visant à mieux connaître les pratiques actuelles, les ressources et les besoins des enseignant·e·s dans l’enseignement de la lecture aux élèves ayant une déficience intellectuelle scolarisé·e·s en écoles spécialisées. Dans une deuxième temps, nous avons développé un moyen d’enseignement de la lecture adapté aux élèves ayant une déficience intellectuelle et qui tienne compte des besoins des enseignant·e·s. Ce moyen a été pré-testé dans quatre classes et optimisé grace aux feedbacks réguliers des enseignant.e.s spécialisé.e.s impliqué.e.s dans sa mise à l'essai pendant plusieurs mois. Dans une troisième temps, nous avons mené une étude expérimentale avec pré-test et post-test et répartition aléatoire d'élèves dans un groupe témoin et un groupe expérimental, dans le but d'évaluer les effets de ce moyen d'enseignement sur les progrès d'élèves ayant une déficience intellectuelle ne sachant pas encore décoder.
description: Measurements and tests
description: Mesures et tests
description: Messeinheiten und Tests
description: This study was conducted during one school year (pre-test in September 2018 and post-test in May 2019). Special education teachers from special education classrooms for elementary students with intellectual disability were recruited in four French-speaking regions of Switzerland. The special education teachers were asked to identify students who met the following eligibility criteria: (1) having been diagnosed with an intellectual disability; (2) being 6 to 13 years old; (3) being able to communicate orally (using at least twenty words intelligibly in daily life); (4) knowing at least three letter-sound correspondences; and (5) being unable to decode CV or VC syllables (for example fo, sa, lo). The exclusion criteria were having an uncorrected hearing or visual impairment or having a severe physical disability preventing the student from being able to point to answers with their fingers.
description: Random sampling : A total of 50 students met the eligibility criteria and received written parental consent to participate in the present study. They were randomly allocated to a treatment or a control group using simple random assignment blocked by teacher (when multiple students in a classroom were determined eligible to participate). The teachers in the treatment group implemented a phonics-based reading instruction program created by our research team for students with ID (de Chambrier et al., in press). Teachers from the control group taught reading as usual. To control the impact of the Hawthorne effect, they received three books for 6- to 10-year-old students translated into Easy to Read by our research team, as well as a short teaching guide to using these books to teach vocabulary and listening comprehension (active control group). We lost two students from the treatment group between the pre-test and the post-test (attrition rate of 4%) due to one teacher leaving the study for long-term medical leave. A total of 48 students participated in the entire study (pre-test and post-test).The participants had nonverbal IQs ranging from 40 to 72 (M = 48.0, SD = 9.5). The majority of the participants (75%) had nonverbal IQs three standard deviations below the mean (IQ &lt; 55-50). All the participants also displayed significant limitations in adaptive behavior (M = 57.3, SD = 11.6).