Author: Annemarie Murphy
Murphy, Annemarie, 2024 Supporting literacy skills for children with developmental disabilities, Flinders University, College of Nursing and Health Sciences
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Learning to read is a fundamental human right and is associated with positive academic, employment, social and mental health outcomes. Yet, children with developmental disabilities are often underestimated in terms of their capacity to develop reading and writing skills and are more likely to experience poorer literacy outcomes than their typically developing peers. This is, at least in part, due to the quality of literacy instruction they receive. Comprehensive literacy instruction, incorporating five key skills, is widely regarded as evidence-based for typically developing children, though is relatively underexplored for children with developmental disabilities. This research aims to extend the current research base on comprehensive literacy instruction for children with developmental disabilities, with a focus on three prevalent disabilities: cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, and autism. This research includes a systematic review and three empirical studies involving delivery and evaluation of comprehensive literacy instruction. All empirical studies involved use of the ABRACADABRA literacy web application and shared book reading (SBR) methods.
The systematic review explored literacy instruction for children with cerebral palsy, with a focus on methods known to be evidence-based for typically developing children. This review revealed that no studies have explored comprehensive literacy instruction for children with cerebral palsy. Study 1 was a case study involving one child with cerebral palsy who participated in intensive literacy instruction using the ABRACADABRA program, delivered via telepractice, and supplemented by parent-led SBR. This child with cerebral palsy made modest gains in their letter-sound correspondence and decoding skills following participation in the literacy program. Study 2 was a pilot study involving six children with Down syndrome using the ABRACADABRA program, delivered via telepractice, and supplemented by parent-led SBR. Children with Down syndrome made gains in their word- and passage-level reading accuracy skills and functional reading comprehension skills. Study 3 was a quasi-experimental study involving 59 children with autism. This study was significantly disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic and stay-at-home orders issued midway through instruction, leaving a final sample of 47 participants. This study initially involved small-group literacy instruction delivered face-to-face, though halfway through changed to one-to-one instruction delivered via telepractice because of the pandemic induced limitations. Children in this study received either ABRACADABRA instruction only, or ABRACADABRA plus clinician-led SBR. Children who participated in instruction made statistically significant gains in their nonword reading skills, relative to a control group. There were no other statistically significant results; however, effect sizes for all other reading outcomes were similar to previous ABRACADABRA research with children with autism (medium effects for word reading accuracy and reading comprehension and large effect sizes for passage reading accuracy).
This research contributes original empirical evidence concerning comprehensive literacy instruction delivered to groups of children with developmental disabilities. Additionally, this research contributes new evidence to show that remote delivery of high-quality literacy instruction is feasible and can be effective for some children with developmental disabilities. This finding has the potential to increase the accessibility of some services. It is hoped that research such as this can help guide policies and practices that improve literacy outcomes for children with developmental disabilities.
Keywords: literacy, reading instruction, developmental disability, speech pathology
Subject: Speech Pathology thesis
Thesis type: Doctor of Philosophy
Completed: 2024
School: College of Nursing and Health Sciences
Supervisor: Joanne Arciuli