Two Approaches to Phonics Instruction: Comparison of Effects with Children with Significant Cognitive Disability

The effects of two systematic methods of phonics instruction for children with significant cognitive disability were compared. Fifty-two participants, aged 5–12 years were randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups: (i) a synthetic phonics instruction, (ii) an analogy phonics instruction group, and (iii) a control group. Participants in the synthetic and analogy phonics groups received twelve sessions of individual instruction. Findings suggest that for many students with significant cognitive disability systematic phonics instruction is beneficial. Further research should focus on the maintenance and generalization of phonics skills acquired by children with significant cognitive disability. Under the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA, 2004), a small percentage of children with disabilities take alternate assessments instead of the general statewide assessment. These students are defined as students with significant cognitive disability (IDEA, 2004). Research on how best to teach core academic subjects to this population is sparse. Existing research shows that students with significant cognitive disability can learn and acquire new skills (Browder, Fallin, Davis, & Karvonen, 2003). However, research is still needed to substantiate which methods of instruction are effective in enabling students with significant cognitive disability to meet standards in academic subjects such as reading and mathematics. This study compared the effects of two approaches to phonics instruction in teaching children with significant cognitive disability to read. Effectiveness of Phonics Instruction Explicit, systematic instruction in phonics has been established as being beneficial for students in the beginning stages of reading and for students with difficulties learning to read (Chall, 1996; National Reading Panel, NRP, 2000). Hoover and Gough (1990) proposed that “decoding” skills and linguistic comprehension need to be dissociated in order for children to gain substantial skills in either, but for reading to be effective they need to be combined. Ehri, Nunes, Stahl and Willows (2001) found all methods of phonics instruction to be effective but systematic methods have been found to be more effective than methods than were not, with synthetic instruction having the largest effect (d 0.45). There are many reasons why phonics instruction has not been an integral part of reading instruction for children with significant cognitive disability. Three of those reasons, institutional beliefs, historical exclusion from research studies, and strength of literature supporting sight word instruction, will be discussed. Institutional Beliefs Within the educational community there are a number of institutional beliefs that have shaped reading instruction for children with significant cognitive disability. A belief that children with cognitive disability were not caThis research was conducted while Elizabeth Grace Finnegan was a student in Department of Health and Behavioral Studies, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York as part of her dissertation requirements. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Elizabeth Grace Finnegan, St. Thomas Aquinas College, 125 Route 340, Sparkill, NY10976. Email: efinnegan@ stac.edu Education and Training in Autism and Developmental Disabilities, 2012, 47(3), 269–279 © Division on Autism and Developmental Disabilities Effects of Systematic Phonics / 269 pable of learning to read, a belief that children needed prerequisite skills in order to learn to read and a belief that other skills were more important to learn. These beliefs originated in the historical treatment of individuals with severe disabilities (Winzer, 1993) and in the subsequent writings of influential researchers. Dolch and Bloomster (1937), for example, concluded that a child must have a mental age of seven or above to benefit from phonics instruction. Kliewer and Biklen (2001) pointed to developmental research as responsible for creating a curriculum founded upon a hierarchy of sub-skills, for example attending skills must be secure before more advanced skills such as reading are taught. These beliefs effectively reduced the opportunities for children with significant cognitive disability to acquire literacy skills. Recent surveys indicate that parents and teachers rate academic skills like reading, below skills such as communication skills, grooming skills and social skills (Agran, Alper, & Wehmeyer 2002; Flowers, Ahlgrim-Delzell, Browder, & Spooner, 2005) for children with significant disabilities. Opportunities for students with significant cognitive disability to develop literacy skills have continued to be replaced with lessons on functional skills, therapy skills, or avoided altogether (Kliewer & Landis, 1999). Historical Exclusion from Research Studies In past studies on reading instruction children with significant cognitive disability were not included. Chall’s (1996) major synthesis of research regarding effective reading instruction concluded that first and second graders, and students with a low IQ who received training in phonics, were ahead of their peers who used basal readers on word recognition and oral reading. In considering this synthesis retrospectively, it is not clear whether this includes students with significant cognitive disability or not. Low IQ could mean lowaverage, below average, or slow learner. Students with significant cognitive disability were not necessarily receiving schooling at the time this synthesis was conducted and probably not included in the studies. Children with significant cognitive disability continue to be excluded from major reviews of the literature. The NRP (2000) did not examine students whose IQs fell outside of average range because the studies involving these groups did not meet other criteria for inclusion in their analysis. Such exclusion makes it difficult to substantiate which methods of reading instruction meet the educational needs of children with significant cognitive disability. Literature Supporting Sight Word Instruction There are more published studies on sight word instruction for children with significant disabilities than phonics instruction. In a meta-analysis of 32 single-subject studies on the instruction of sight words, Browder and Xin (1998) found that there were considerable effects for sight word training. Most of these studies measured the number of words children could read correctly, and did not ascertain whether or not participants could use the words in a generalized way. In comparison, Joseph and Seery (2004) found only seven studies published over a period of twelve years on phonics-based instruction for students with significant cognitive disability. Phonics Instruction for Children with Significant Cognitive Disability Although research on phonics instruction for children with significant cognitive disability has been sparse, studies have shown that it can be effective. Four single-subject design studies examined the effectiveness of direct instruction with children with moderate intellectual disability. Participants in the studies had IQ scores of between 38–76 (Barbetta, Heward, & Bradley, 1993; Bradford, Shippen, Alberto, Houchins, & Flores, 2006; Flores, Shippen, Alberto, & Crowe, 2004; Waugh, Fredrick, & Alberto, 2009). The samples in these studies were small: six participants (Flores et al., 2004), three participants (Bradford et al., 2006), five participants (Barbetta et al., 1993) and three participants (Waugh et al., 2009). Notably, Waugh et al. (2009) conducted a study to determine if letter-sound correspondence was taught systematically would the participants be able to sound out new words using those letter sounds? The researchers found that participants were able to master some sets 270 / Education and Training in Autism and Developmental Disabilities-September 2012 of words, and in the short term were able to read previously unseen words, but had difficulty recalling them over time. Students were only able to read a few novel words after twelve weeks of intervention, and it was discussed whether teaching letter-sound correspondence in isolation with no reference to the meaning of the words was a factor in the participants’ limited success. Two other studies demonstrated that phonics instruction could be effective (Bradford et al., 2006; Flores et al., 2004), while the fourth (Barbetta et al., 1993) was inconclusive. In addition, Conners, Atwell, Rosenquist and Sligh (2001) investigated the cognitive processes involved in phonological decoding. The study included children with IQ scores of at least 40 but less than 70, and concluded that the ability to rehearse phonological information in the working memory seemed to offer a better advantage in word decoding than overall IQ. A comprehensive phonics-based direct instruction reading program was found to be effective in improving early reading and language skills for participants with significant cognitive disability (Allor, Mathes, Roberts, Jones, & Champlin, 2010). Twenty-eight students in grades 1–4 (mean age of 9.46 years) with IQ scores ranging from 40–55 were randomly assigned into either a treatment or a control group. The treatment group received the intervention based on Early Interventions in Reading, Level 1 (Mathes & Torgesen, 2005) for two years. Results were significant for blending words and segmenting words on The Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (Wagner, Torgesen, & Rashotte, 1999), phonemic decoding on the Test of Word Reading Efficiency (Torgesen, Wagner, & Rashotte, 1999) and word attack skills on The Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery (Woodcock, 1991), demonstrating that teaching phonics using direct instruction was effective in increasing participants’ word attack and other reading skills.