Strengths and weaknesses in reading skills of youth with intellectual disabilities

The mechanism of phonetic information in voice identity discrimination: a comparative study based on sighted and blind people

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to examine whether phonetic information functions and how phonetic information affects voice identity processing in blind people.

Method

To address the first inquiry, 25 normal sighted participants and 30 blind participants discriminated voice identity, when listening forward speech and backward speech from their own native language and another unfamiliar language. To address the second inquiry, combining articulatory suppression paradigm, 26 normal sighted participants and 26 blind participants discriminated voice identity, when listening forward speech from their own native language and another unfamiliar language.

Results

In Experiment 1, not only in the voice identity discrimination task with forward speech, but also in the discrimination task with backward speech, both the sighted and blind groups showed the superiority of the native language. This finding supports the view that backward speech still retains some phonetic information, and indicates that phonetic information can affect voice identity processing in sighted and blind people. In addition, only the superiority of the native language of sighted people was regulated by the speech manner, which is related to articulatory rehearsal. In Experiment 2, only the superiority of the native language of sighted people was regulated by articulatory suppression. This indicates that phonetic information may act in different ways on voice identity processing in sighted and blind people.

Conclusion

The heightened dependence on voice source information in blind people appears not to undermine the function of phonetic information, but it appears to change the functional mechanism of phonetic information. These findings suggest that the present phonetic familiarity model needs to be improved with respect to the mechanism of phonetic information.

Phonological awareness and rapid automatized naming as predictors of early literacy skills among children with mild to borderline intellectual functioning

The aim was to investigate the predicting role of phonological awareness (PA) and rapid automatized naming (RAN) on early literacy skills (e.g., word reading [WR] and spelling [SP]) among children with mild to borderline intellectual functioning. A total of 68 children in inclusive schools in grades 1 and 2, from 12 primary schools from Makka, classified as having intellectual disabilities (ID) of unspecified origin were chosen to participate in this study. Measures of PA and RAN were correlated with measures of WR and SP in children with mild to borderline intellectual functioning. This study advanced knowledge about the predictors (PA and RAN) of early literacy skills (WR and SP) among children with mild to borderline intellectual functioning.

Decoding intervention for young students with mild intellectual disabilities: A single-subject design study

Students with intellectual disabilities need more time and explicit instruction to develop word decoding. Most previous research on interventions among these students is performed in English. Therefore, the current study examined the impact of a word-decoding intervention in Swedish on individual students with intellectual disabilities. A single-subject-design study was conducted with five students with mild intellectual disability in the fourth grade. They needed to enhance decoding, and Swedish was their first language. Their word and non-word decoding was measured during the baseline and intervention phases. The intervention with the Wolff Intensive Program was delivered by special education teachers supporting phonemic decoding and reading fluency training during 25 sessions. All five students developed their decoding as they decoded more words in a given time (NAP=0.84-1.00) and decreased their decoding errors in both word and nonword decoding (NAP=0.72-1.00). The results are promising but need to be confirmed in additional studies.

Phonological Awareness and Rapid Automatized Naming: The Mediating Effect of Word Reading and Spelling in Children with Developmental Dyslexia, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and Mild Intellectual Disability

INTRODUCTION

In learning to read, children learn to integrate orthographic, phonological, and semantic codes into highly specified and redundant lexical representations. The aim is to test a proposed model for the relationship between phonological awareness (PA) and rapid automatized naming (RAN) as mediated by word reading (WR) and spelling (SP) in children with developmental dyslexia (DD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and mild intellectual disability (ID).

METHODS

The relation between PA and RAN was found to be mediated by WR and SP in children with DD, ADHD, and mild ID. Three groups of children were included: DD children (N = 70), ADHD children (N = 68), and ID children (N = 69). This is a quantitative correlational, cross-sectional study investigating the strength and direction of relationships among proposed variables.

RESULTS

The relation between PA and RAN was found to be mediated by WR and SP. Based on their correlation analysis, the researcher concluded that there are significant correlations between PA, RAN, WR, and SP. PA correlates positively with RAN and SP. RAN correlates positively with WR and SP.

CONCLUSION

The study extended our knowledge of the relationship between PA and RAN as mediated by WR and SP in children with DD, ADHD, and mild ID. In practice, this is conducive to promote the utilization of "PA" and "RAN" so as to improve the early literacy skills (WR and SP) among children with DD, ADHD, and mild ID.

Age and gender-related differences in quality of life of Bangladeshi patients with Down Syndrome: A cross-sectional study

Currently available screening instruments for evaluation of individuals with intellectual disabilities do not capture all the complications associated with Down Syndrome (DS). Here, we examined age and gender-specific variability revolving around major challenges related to ophthalmologic and auditory health, social integration, daily life, and behavioral problems in 468 (age: 2–84 years) individuals with DS living in all eight divisions of Bangladesh. More than half of the children presented with significant difficulty in walking or other targeted movements compared with 37.9% of adolescents (p = 0.03). Nearly 70% of children exhibited communication difficulties, particularly revolving around the understanding of speech, comprehending or learning tasks or new materials, and in expressing thoughts in words or behaviors (p = 0.003–0.006). Uncontrolled urination was frequent and predominantly found among children (p = 0.04). No significant differences were present in females vs. males except for concern about physical appearance (females: 58.5% vs. males: 47.5%; p = 0.02). The severity of DS was associated with intellectual performance, communication difficulties, and self-sufficiency (i.e., uncontrolled micturition or bowel movements) but not with psychotic, ophthalmologic, auditory, or motor skills-related problems. Increased awareness of DS phenotypic profiles among professionals and caregivers can foster earlier detection and counselling and help formulate appropriate interventions to reduce long-term sequelae and enhance cognitive and behavioral developmental outcomes.

Decoding Abilities in Adolescents with Intellectual Disabilities: The Contribution of Cognition, Language, and Home Literacy

Decoding abilities in individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID) are substantially lower than for typical readers. The underlying mechanisms of their poor reading remain uncertain. The aim of this study was to investigate the concurrent predictors of decoding ability in 136 adolescents with non-specific ID, and to evaluate the results in relation to previous findings on typical readers. The study included a broad range of cognitive and language measures as predictors of decoding ability. A LASSO regression analysis identified phonological awareness and rapid automatized naming (RAN) as the most important predictors. The predictors explained 57.73% of the variance in decoding abilities. These variables are similar to the ones found in earlier research on typically developing children, hence supporting our hypothesis of a delayed rather than a different reading profile. These results lend some support to the use of interventions and reading instructions, originally developed for typically developing children, for children and adolescents with non-specific ID.

Procedural Learning through Action Observation: Preliminary Evidence from Virtual Gardening Activity in Intellectual Disability

Intellectual disability (ID) compromises intellectual and adaptive functioning. People with an ID show difficulty with procedural skills, with loss of autonomy in daily life. From an embodiment perspective, observation of action promotes motor skill learning. Among promising technologies, virtual reality (VR) offers the possibility of engaging the sensorimotor system, thus, improving cognitive functions and adaptive capacities. Indeed, VR can be used as sensorimotor feedback, which enhances procedural learning. In the present study, fourteen subjects with an ID underwent progressive steps training combined with VR aimed at learning gardening procedures. All participants were trained twice a week for fourteen weeks (total 28 sessions). Participants were first recorded while sowing zucchini, then they were asked to observe a virtual video which showed the correct procedure. Next, they were presented with their previous recordings, and they were asked to pay attention and to comment on the errors made. At the end of the treatment, the results showed that all participants were able to correctly garden in a real environment. Interestingly, action observation facilitated, not only procedural skills, but also specific cognitive abilities. This evidence emphasizes, for the first time, that action observation combined with VR improves procedural learning in ID.

Rapid automatized naming skills of children with intellectual disability

Background

A deficit in Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN), acknowledged to be linked to dyslexia, has rarely been investigated as a potential explanation of the reading difficulties that children with intellectual disability (ID) often face. The existing studies mainly focused on adolescent or adults with ID matched to typically developing (TD) children on verbal mental age, or used a single RAN task.

Aims

The aim of this study was to compare the RAN pattern and skills of children with ID and low reading skills to the ones of TD children with matched reading skills.

Method

30 children with mild to moderate ID with mixed etiology (M = 9.4 years-old) were pair-matched to 30 TD children (M = 4.3 years-old) on phonological awareness- and reading-level. They were all administered color, object, finger, and vowel RAN tasks.

Outcomes and results

Results showed that children with ID had more domain-specific RAN skills and were largely slower in most of the RAN tasks than their younger TD peers.

Conclusions and implications

This suggests that a deficit in RAN should be added to the explanations of their frequent reading difficulties, which might open new remediation possibilities.

Parent perceptions regarding literacy instruction for students with intellectual disability

BACKGROUND

Parents offer a unique perspective as they may view literacy instruction through the lens of its direct impact on their child's daily life. Further, they are likely to provide insight into the interactions between the perceived effectiveness of instruction and their expectations for their child's success. The purposes of the current investigation were to explore perceptions of parents of children with intellectual disability (ID) related to their child's literacy instruction in schools and understand parental expectations for their child's literacy performance.

METHODS

In the current investigation, we surveyed 211 parents of children with ID in one state within the USA to identify their perceptions related to their child's literacy outcomes and instruction. The survey instrument contained 25 items including 9 multiple-choice, 12 multiple-selection, 2 open-response and 2 rank order items.

RESULTS

Data indicated significant differences across grade bands related to the type of skills students engage in learning, the importance of specific literacy skills and the challenges or barriers for students to engage in literacy instruction. The overwhelming majority of parents reported their child learning to read as very important and believe there is a difference in life outcomes between children who can read written words and those who cannot. Parents of elementary school children report barriers of disruptive behaviour, the inability of children to remain seated and distractibility more so than parents of secondary students. Parents of high school students reported a lack of instructional time more often than parents of middle and elementary school.

CONCLUSIONS

While parents across grade bands reported the importance of literacy skills for students with ID and instruction in reading comprehension, listening comprehension and vocabulary, some differences were noted. Only half the parents reported an increased focus on literacy instruction, including on essential skills (e.g. decoding), in the earlier grades. Problem behaviour and motivation served as barriers to literacy for elementary students, and a lack of instructional time served as a barrier to writing for high school students.

Comparison of constant time delay and simultaneous prompting to teach word reading skills to students with intellectual disability

This study compares the effectiveness and efficiency of constant time delay (CTD) and simultaneous prompting (SP) to teach decoding and word reading to four students, 7 to 9 years of age, with intellectual disabilities (ID) in the mild to moderate range. An adapted alternating treatment design was implemented to assess the two methods. The results suggest that both procedures were equally effective. All four students learned to decode and read the instructional words. Maintenance data showed no substantial differences between the two teaching procedures. CTD was more efficient according to two efficiency measures since three students acquired the word sets taught with CTD in fewer sessions and trials. However, SP was more efficient in terms of the number and percentage of errors made and the instructional time needed for all four students. Two students were able to decode and read all or some of the generalization words, while the other two were able to decode a higher percentage of sounds within the words than before the teaching sessions. This study shows that CTD and SP are effective in improving reading skills for students with ID.

Beginning reading interventions for children and adolescents with intellectual disability

BACKGROUND

Historically, students with intellectual disability were not expected to learn to read, and thus were excluded from reading instruction. Over the past decades, societal expectations for this group of learners have changed in that children and adolescents with intellectual disability are now expected to be provided with, and benefit from, literacy instruction. This shift in societal expectations has also led to an increase in research examining effective interventions for increasing beginning reading skills for students with intellectual disability.

OBJECTIVES

To assess the effectiveness of interventions for teaching beginning reading skills to children and adolescents with intellectual disability.

SEARCH METHODS

We searched the following electronic databases up to October 2019: CENTRAL; MEDLINE, including Epub Ahead of Print and In-Process and Other Non-Indexed Citations, Embase, 13 other databases, and two trials registers. We contacted authors of included studies, examined reference lists, and used Google Scholar to search for additional studies.

SELECTION CRITERIA

We included randomized controlled trials (including trials that use quasi-random methods of allocation such as date of birth), involving children and adolescents with intellectual disability (defined as an intelligence quotient (IQ) two standard deviations or more below the population mean) between the ages of 4 and 21 years, that evaluated the efficacy of a beginning reading intervention compared to a control intervention, including no treatment control, wait-list control, treatment as usual, attention control, or alternate non-reading instruction control.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS

Two review authors independently screened titles and abstracts yielded by the search against the inclusion criteria, and extracted data from each trial using a piloted data extraction form to collect information about the population, intervention, randomization methods, blinding, sample size, outcome measures, follow-up duration, attrition and handling of missing data, and methods of analysis. When data were missing, one review author contacted the study authors to request additional information. Two review authors assessed the risk of bias of each included study and rated the quality of the evidence using the GRADE approach (a systematic method for rating the certainty of evidence in meta-analyses). We conducted random-effect meta-analyses, with inverse-variance weighting to combine effect sizes for each of our primary and secondary outcomes. We presented effect sizes as standardized mean differences (SMD) with 95% confidence intervals (CI).

MAIN RESULTS

We identified seven studies involving 352 children and adolescents with intellectual disabilities that met the inclusion criteria. All studies provided the intervention in school settings. Four studies were conducted in the USA, one in Canada, and two in the UK. Three studies were funded by grants from the US Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences; one study by the Canadian Language and Literacy Research Network and the Nova Scotia Health Research Foundation; and three studies did not indicate a funding source. We identified some concerns with risk of bias, mainly due to the difficulty of blinding of participants and personnel, and the lack of blinding of outcome assessors. Meta-analyses of the data demonstrated small-to-moderate effects of beginning reading interventions delivered to children and adolescents with intellectual disability across four dependent variables. We found medium effect sizes in favor of the beginning reading interventions for the primary outcomes of phonologic awareness (SMD 0.55, 95% CI 0.23 to 0.86; 4 studies, 178 participants; moderate-quality evidence), word reading (SMD 0.54, 95% CI 0.05 to 1.03; 5 studies, 220 participants; moderate-quality evidence), and decoding (SMD 0.40, 95% CI 0.12 to 0.67; 5 studies, 230 participants; low-quality evidence). The studies reported no adverse events. We also found a moderate effect for the secondary outcomes of oral reading fluency (SMD 0.65, 95% CI -0.12 to 1.42; 2 studies, 84 participants; low-quality evidence) and language skills (SMD 0.28, 95% CI 0.03 to 0.54; 3 studies, 222 participants; moderate-quality evidence).

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS

Results from this review provide evidence that beginning reading interventions that include elements of phonologic awareness, letter sound instruction, and decoding, delivered to children and adolescents with intellectual disability, are associated with small-to-moderate improvements in phonologic awareness, word reading, decoding, expressive and receptive language, and oral reading fluency. These findings are aligned with previously conducted studies that examined the effects of reading interventions for people without intellectual disability.

Reading skills in children with mild to borderline intellectual disability: a cross-sectional study on second to eighth graders

BACKGROUND

Students with intellectual disabilities (IDs) have various learning difficulties and are at risk for school failure. Large inter-individual differences are described for reading, but it is unclear how these vary as a function of grade. The aim of this study was to examine various reading fluency, accuracy and comprehension parameters in second-to-eighth-grade Italian children with either borderline intellectual functioning (BIF) or mild ID (MID).

METHODS

We examined 106 children with BIF (67 M and 39 F) and 168 children with MID (107 M and 61 F). The children were in the second to eighth grade and were comparable for chronological age (7 to 14 years). They were administered a battery of tests that assessed fluency and accuracy of word, pseudo-word and text reading, as well as text comprehension. Standardised scores allowed us to compare the performance of the two groups with normative values.

RESULTS

Children with ID obtained generally low scores compared with normative values. Those with MID had greater difficulty than those with BIF. Furthermore, difficulty was greater for speed than for accuracy measures and for words than for pseudo-words. Difficulty (particularly in the case of reading speed) tended to be pronounced at later grades. Marked individual differences were present independently of MID-BIF subgrouping, as well as stimulus category and reading parameter.

CONCLUSIONS

As a group, children with ID showed difficulty in reading acquisition; the effect was greater for children with more severe ID, but large individual differences were observed in children with both BIF and MID. Relatively spared pseudo-word reading skills indicate efficient use of the grapheme-to-phoneme conversion routine. This processing mode may prove more ineffective at higher levels of schooling when even in regular orthographies such as Italian typically developing children rely on lexical activation.

Word reading, vocabulary, and mental health problems in adolescent girls and boys with intellectual and developmental disabilities

Reading difficulties are linked to several disadvantages in the general population. Less is known about correlates of reading difficulties in individuals with intellectual and severe developmental disabilities (IDD). Vocabulary and word reading were assessed in 112 adolescents with IDD, recruited from Special needs comprehensive schools in Sweden (grundsärskolor in Swedish). Proxy-ratings of mental health were collected from teachers and parents for a subset of the participants. Relationships between all measures were investigated. Reading and vocabulary were poorly developed in both groups and significantly associated. While mental health problems were common, there were no significant associations with word reading or with vocabulary knowledge. Thus, the study did not confirm an association between reading difficulties and mental health problems in adolescents with IDD. Still, the frequency of mental health problems and the low reading abilities point to the need for further intervention for adolescents with IDD.

Acquisition of Reading and Intellectual Development Disorder

We propose a review of the literature of the studies investigating reading acquisition in intellectual deficiency (ID), with particular focus on the explanatory factors for reading difficulties. Indeed, we explore the role of intellectual efficiency, perceptual abilities, oral language development, phonological processing and memory. The study of reading acquisition in ID is a challenge because of a high degree of heterogeneity in the results which, together with other variables influencing learning and development. This review has allowed us to understand that there are multiple reasons why individuals with ID have difficulty learning to read. More specifically, there is a link between reading skills and certain cognitive skills, such as perception, oral language, phonological processing and working memory.

E-Books for Promoting Vocabulary Among Students With Intellectual Disability as Opposed to Children With Learning Disability: Can Repeated Reading Make a Difference?

Despite young children's increasing access to electronic books (e-books) and the evidence indicating their effectiveness for promoting language and literacy, no study has yet explored the e-book's effect in this area among students with intellectual disability (ID). Motivated by this challenge, the current study sought to investigate the effect of an educational e-book on vocabulary acquisition among students with ID. The effect on vocabulary of five repeated readings of an e-book among students with ID was measured and compared with that of children with learning disability (LD). The findings indicate that whereas two independent rereadings with the e-book were enough to promote vocabulary acquisition among the students with LD, at least five rereadings were required to make a difference in the group with ID. Explanations and implications of the findings are discussed.

Psychometric properties of the Dynamic Risk Outcome Scales (DROS) for individuals with mild intellectual disability or borderline intellectual functioning and externalizing behaviour problems

BACKGROUND

The present study examined the psychometric properties of the Dynamic Risk Outcome Scales (DROS), an instrument developed to measure dynamic risk factors in individuals with mild intellectual disabilities or borderline intellectual functioning (MID-BIF) and externalizing (including offending-like) behaviour problems.

METHOD

The sample consisted of 606 clients (86% male) from inpatient treatment wards at a facility for individuals with MID-BIF and externalizing behaviour problems.

RESULTS

The DROS showed an acceptable factor structure, good internal consistency, significant test-retest reliability and fair to excellent inter-rater reliabilities for most subscales and total score. Compared to the Adult Behavior Checklist (ABCL; Achenbach & Rescorla, 2003 Manual for the ASEBA adult forms and profiles. Burlington, VT: University of Vermont, Research Center for Children, Youth, & Families), the DROS showed convergent and divergent validity, concurrent and longitudinal validity.

CONCLUSIONS

The DROS is a reliable and valid instrument to measure dynamic risk factors in clients with MID-BIF. Future research on the DROS will focus on the assessment of recidivism and the inclusion of internalizing problems.

Functional basic reading skills in Williams syndrome

This study investigated whether individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) can attain a functional level of basic reading skills. The Study also investigated broader cognitive factors associated with reading ability in individuals with WS. Thirty individuals with WS participated in this study (mean chronological age 21 years and mean mental age 7 years 7 months). The results supported our hypotheses that: firstly, reading abilities would be heterogeneous in WS; secondly, at least some WS individuals are capable of achieving a functional basic reading level; and thirdly, on average, WS individuals would find reading of nonwords more difficult than reading of regular and irregular words. Moreover, higher reading ability was found to be associated with increased outcomes in adaptive functioning, in particular, Written and Expressive Communication skills and Community Living skills, highlighting the potential benefits of developing reading abilities in WS. Although Intelligence Quotient (IQ) was related to overall basic reading ability generally, it was not found to be a determining factor in reading subtypes. Several cognitive skills known to be related to reading ability in typically developing individuals were found to be associated with reading performance and reading subtypes. Implications for appropriate reading instruction are discussed.

Modeling individual variation in early literacy skills in kindergarten children with intellectual disabilities

In the present study, we investigated (i) to what extent the early literacy skills (phonological awareness, letter knowledge, and word decoding) along with cognitive (nonverbal reasoning, attention, phonological short-term memory, sequential memory, executive functioning) and linguistic (auditory discrimination, rapid naming, articulation, vocabulary) precursor measures of 53 six-year old children with intellectual disabilities (ID) differ from a group of 74 peers with normal language acquisition (NLA) and (ii) whether the individual variation of early literacy skills in the two groups to the same extent can be explained from the precursor measures. Results showed that children with ID scored below the NLA group on all literacy and precursor measures. Structural equation modeling evidenced that in the children with NLA early literacy was directly predicted by phonological awareness, PSTM and vocabulary, with nonverbal reasoning and auditory discrimination also predicting phonological awareness. In children with ID however, the variation in word decoding was predicted by letter knowledge and nonverbal reasoning, whereas letter knowledge was predicted by rapid naming, which on its turn was predicted by attentional skills. It can be concluded phonological awareness plays a differential role in the early literacy skills of children with and without ID. As a consequence, the arrears in phonological awareness in children with ID might put them on hold in gaining proper access to literacy acquisition.

WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS

This paper adds to the theoretical knowledge base on literacy acquisition in a special population, namely children with intellectual disabilities (ID). It addresses factors that influence early literacy learning, which have not been investigated thoroughly in this special and specific group. Furthermore, the children are not tested solely on literacy, but also on cognitive measures that may influence literacy acquisition. Whereas most research in ID focuses on groups with specific syndromes/etiologies, this paper takes a varied group of children with ID into account. The paper also adds to educational insights, since the findings imply that children with ID are able to use phonological pathways in learning to read. Educators could teach these children phonics-based literacy skills tailored to their individual learning needs.

Exploring Phonological Awareness Skills in Children With Intellectual Disability

The phonological awareness skills of 7- to 8-year-old children with intellectual disability (ID) were compared to those of 4- to 5-year-old typically developing children who were matched for early reading skills, vocabulary, and gender. Globally, children with ID displayed a marked weakness in phonological awareness. Syllable blending, syllable segmentation, and first phoneme detection appeared to be preserved. In contrast, children with ID showed a marked weakness in rhyme detection and a slight weakness in phoneme blending. Two school years later, these deficits no longer remained. Marked weaknesses appeared in phoneme segmentation and first/last phoneme detection. The findings suggest that children with ID display an atypical pattern in phonological awareness that changes with age. The implications for practice and research are discussed.

Foundations of reading comprehension in children with intellectual disabilities

BACKGROUND

Knowledge about predictors for reading comprehension in children with intellectual disabilities (ID) is still fragmented.

AIMS

This study compared reading comprehension, word decoding, listening comprehension, and reading related linguistic and cognitive precursor measures in children with mild ID and typically developing controls. Moreover, it was explored how the precursors related to reading achievement.

METHOD AND PROCEDURES

Children with mild ID and typical controls were assessed on reading comprehension, decoding, language comprehension, and linguistic (early literacy skills, vocabulary, grammar) and cognitive (rapid naming, phonological short-term memory, working memory, temporal processing, nonverbal reasoning) precursor measures. It was tested to what extent variations in reading comprehension could be explained from word decoding, listening comprehension and precursor measures.

OUTCOMES AND RESULTS

The ID group scored significantly below typical controls on all measures. Word decoding was at or above first grade level in half the ID group. Reading comprehension in the ID group was related to word decoding, listening comprehension, early literacy skills, and temporal processing.

CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS

The reading comprehension profile of children with mild ID strongly resembles typical early readers. The simple view of reading pertains to children with mild ID, with additional influence of early literacy skills and temporal processing.

How Achievement Error Patterns of Students With Mild Intellectual Disability Differ From Low IQ and Low Achievement Students Without Diagnoses

This study investigated the differences in error factor scores on the Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement–Third Edition between individuals with mild intellectual disabilities (Mild IDs), those with low achievement scores but average intelligence, and those with low intelligence but without a Mild ID diagnosis. The two control groups were matched with the Mild ID clinical cases on demographic variables including age, gender, and parental education. Results showed significant differences between the groups on several error factors, particularly between the Mild ID group and the two control groups, and no significant differences between all three groups on six error factors. In addition, the two control groups differed significantly on four error factors. Implications for intervention selection, diagnostic considerations, and future directions for achievement test creation are discussed.

Reading Skills in Down Syndrome: An Examination of Orthographic Knowledge

The primary goal of this study was to examine the word identification domain of the Simple View of Reading in participants with Down syndrome (DS) by comparing them to participants with typical development (TD) matched on word identification ability. Two subskills, phonological recoding and orthographic knowledge, were measured. Results revealed that individuals with DS performed similarly to controls on 2 measures of orthographic knowledge, but more poorly on phonological recoding and a third measure of orthographic knowledge. The first two orthographic tasks included real words as stimuli; the third task used letter patterns, not real words. These results suggest that individuals with DS may have a relative strength in word-specific orthographic knowledge but not in general orthographic knowledge.

Teaching Sight Words to Elementary Students With Intellectual Disability and Autism: A Comparison of Teacher-Directed Versus Computer-Assisted Simultaneous Prompting

The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of teacher-directed simultaneous prompting to computer-assisted simultaneous prompting for teaching sight words to 3 elementary school students with intellectual disability. Activities in the computer-assisted condition were designed with Intellitools Classroom Suite software whereas traditional materials (i.e., flashcards) were used in the teacher-directed condition. Treatment conditions were compared using an adapted alternating treatments design. Acquisition of sight words occurred in both conditions for all 3 participants; however, each participant either clearly responded better in the teacher-directed condition or reported a preference for the teacher-directed condition when performance was similar with computer-assisted instruction being more efficient. Practical implications and directions for future research are discussed.

The role of phonological awareness and letter-sound knowledge in the reading development of children with intellectual disabilities

Our study investigated if phonological awareness and letter-sound knowledge were predictors of reading progress in children with intellectual disabilities (ID) with unspecified etiology. An academic achievement test was administered to 129 children with mild or moderate ID when they were 6-8 years old, as well as one and two school years later. Findings indicated that phonological awareness and letter-sound knowledge at 6-8 years of age predicted progress in word and non-word reading after one school year and two school years after controlling for IQ, age, expressive vocabulary, spoken language, and type of placement. Phonological awareness and letter-sound knowledge at 6-8 years of age also predicted progress in reading comprehension after one school year and two school years. These findings suggest that training phonological awareness skills combined with explicit phonics instruction is important to foster reading progress in children with mild and moderate ID with unspecified etiology.

Cognitive and linguistic predictors of reading comprehension in children with intellectual disabilities

A considerable number of children with intellectual disabilities (ID) are able to acquire basic word reading skills. However, not much is known about their achievements in more advanced reading comprehension skills. In the present study, a group of 49 children with ID and a control group of 21 typically developing children with word decoding skills in the normal ranges of first grade were compared in lower level (explicit meaning) and higher level (implicit meaning) reading comprehension abilities. Moreover, in the group of children with ID it was examined to what extent their levels of lower level and higher level reading comprehension could be predicted from their linguistic skills (word decoding, vocabulary, language comprehension) and cognitive skill (nonverbal reasoning). It was found that children with ID were weaker than typically developing children in higher level reading comprehension but not in lower level reading comprehension. Children with ID also performed below the control group on nonverbal reasoning and language comprehension. After controlling for nonverbal reasoning, linguistic skills predicted lower level reading comprehension but not higher level reading comprehension. It can be concluded that children with ID who have basic decoding skill do reasonably well on lower level reading comprehension but continue to have problems with higher level reading comprehension.

Predictors of early literacy skills in children with intellectual disabilities: a clinical perspective

The present study investigated the linguistic and cognitive predictors of early literacy in 17 children with intellectual disabilities (ID) (mean age: 7; 6 years) compared to 24 children with normal language acquisition (NLA) (mean age: 6; 0 years), who were all in the so-called partial alphabetic phase of reading (Ehri, 2005). In each group, children's performances in early literacy skills (phonological awareness, letter knowledge, and word decoding) were assessed, as well as their achievement in linguistic and cognitive measures associated to these skills. The results showed that, notwithstanding the fact that there were no differences in word decoding, children with ID lagged behind on all predictor measures relevant to early literacy skills compared to children with NLA. Moreover, whereas children with NLA showed a regular predictive pathway of early literacy skills, children with ID showed a deviant pattern, in which nonverbal intelligence and rhythmic skills proved to be of major importance. Also letter knowledge appeared to be involved in their early literacy processing. It can be tentatively concluded that in the ID group, children's level of nonverbal intellectual abilities in combination with rhythmic ability proves pivotal in the development of their early literacy skills.

Individuals with intellectual disability can self-teach in reading

Previous research has suggested that individuals with intellectual disability (ID) underperform in several areas of reading compared to mental age-matched peers. However, it is unclear how they compare on orthographic aspects of reading, which have to do with learning and matching the specific letter patterns in words. The leading approach to understanding orthographic learning is the self-teaching hypothesis, which suggests that orthographic learning is acquired through the experience of phonologically recoding words. The present study was a first test of the self-teaching hypothesis for individuals with ID in comparison to a group of typically developing children matched on verbal mental age. Results indicated that both groups were able to self-teach.