Accommodating the Learning Needs of Reading Disabled Adolescents: A Language-Processing Issue

The study Investigated the effectiveness of listening, as an alternative to reading, in learning content-area material among five dyslexic adolescent boys. Listening comprehension was measured under conditions that controlled for the possible effects of apparent expressive language difficulties and utilized mechanically time-altered speech to optimize individual processing characteristics. Listening was found to be a potential avenue for learning content-area material. Further, findings underscore the value of a response format that minimizes involvement of expressive language in severely disabled students with Identifiable expressive language difficulties. Results also suggest that the facilitative effects of time-altered presentations of material for listening merit further investigation. Reading has long been acknowledged as a language-related activity a language art. Over the past twenty years, research seeking to account for difficulties in acquiring reading skills has increasingly linked poor reading to deficits in various aspects of language processing (e.g., Wepman, 1960; Rabinovitch, 1968; Blank et al., 1968; Downing, 1971; Waller, 1976). More recently, Vellutino (1978) has proposed that deficits in either semantic, syntactic or phonological processing of language, or deficits involving any combination of those language subsystems, probably account for the severe readingacquisition difficulties experienced by students characterized as dyslexic. Research has specifically revealed differences between good and poor readers with respect to expressive language factors including levels of mature language use (Wiig et al., 1973; Andolina, 1978; Semel & Wiig, 1975), and naming or producing the names of common objects, etc. (Spring & Capps, 1974). However, some evidence suggests that while expressive language skills lag or appear faulty, the comprehension of oral language (receptive language abilities) among these students is better developed (Newcomer & Magee, 1977; Weaver & Rosner, 1975). While research seeks to more accurately define the factors which contribute to a breakdown in the reading-acquisition process DIANE J. SAWYER, Ph.D., is Associate Professor and Director of Clinical Services, Reading and Language Arts Center, Syracuse University. TESS O. KOSOFF, M.S., is a doctoral candidate in Reading Education, Syracuse University. Volume 4, Winter 1981 61 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.198 on Thu, 29 Sep 2016 05:50:48 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms among those who eventually demonstrate severe retardation in reading, the question of how to deal with the older student whose progress in reading is too slow to permit successful use of reading as the avenue for learning in the upper-elementary and secondary classes is infrequently addressed in the literature. The present investigation was an attempt to ascertain the effectiveness of listening, as an alternative to reading, for learning contentarea type material among five dyslexic adolescent boys. It appeared that listeningcomprehension performance might permit inferences about the utility of receptive language abilities to support school learning. The investigation was based on the assumption that expressive language abilities color interpretations of the results of the tests typically used to assess memory, language comprehension, and prior knowledge as well as new learning. A procedure which freed the measurement of listening comprehension, as much as possible, from the confounding effects of expressive language difficulties was employed. The inquiry included a second focus, i.e., specifically, determining whether mechanically time-altered speech might enhance individual comprehension performance since it would be possible for each student to take in information at a rate which was relatively more facilitative for his/her processing characteristics. Time-altered speech is a fairly recent technique for exploring possible individual variations in the processing of speech and language (see Beasley & Freeman, 1977). The application of this procedure to the diagnosis and management of learning problems among children is the subject of ongoing research in the speech and hearing field. Testing in the Speech and Hearing Clinic at Syracuse University indicated possible CNS dysfunction associated with the processing of speech among two of the five boys. In this investigation it was hypothesized that the unique characteristics of central auditory processing which each might possess would be assisted by conditions of a) time expansion (slower-than-normal speech rate) to various degrees, b) time compression (faster-thannormal speech rate) to various degrees, c) no time alteration (normal speech rate) in yet other cases. The five boys in this investigation were similar with respect to school achievement and some measures of presumed prerequisites for school achievement. However, different kinds of dysfunctions in information processing might yield similar patterns of performance and, therefore, suggest similar strengths or weaknesses which might not exist in fact. The objective of this study was to conduct an investigation of the languagecomprehension abilities among these students to support in-school learning experiences. Since the learning problems each experienced are likely to stem from a unique combination of factors, each was considered a population for this investigation. Inferential statistics were, therefore, not employed.