Opinion Paragraph Writing Intervention for Students with ... · Opinion Paragraph Writing Intervention for Students with Significant Disability Pamela J. Mims, East Tennessee State

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AssistiveTechnologyOutcomesandBenefits

Volume11,Summer2017,pp.29-46CopyrightATIA2017ISSN1938-7261Availableonline:www.atia.org/atob

OpinionParagraphWritingInterventionforStudentswithSignificantDisability

PamelaJ.Mims,EastTennesseeStateUniversity

CarolStanger,AttainmentCompanyRobertPennington,UniversityofLouisville

WendeeWhiteJulieSears

NancyStricklerEastTennesseeStateUniversity

AbstractIncreasingly, technologyhasbeenused toprovideaccess to academic curricula for students withmoderate to severe intellectual disability. In thecurrentpilotstudy,weusedamultipleprobeacrossparticipantsdesigntoevaluatetheeffectivenessofa technology-based instructional package on theopinion writing skills of three middle school stu-dents with moderate and severe intellectualdisability.Findingssuggestthattheinterventionre-sulted in improved performance across all threeparticipants and that all participants maintainedperformance at levels greater than baseline.Limitationsandimplicationsforpracticeandfutureresearcharediscussed.Keywords: writing intervention, assistive technol-ogy,autism,intellectualdisability

IntroductionArecentshiftinthefocusofinstructionforstudentswithmoderate to severe intellectual disabilityhasaffordednewopportunitiesforparticipationinthe

general education curriculum. This change,precipitated by legislative calls for accountability(e.g.,NoChildLeftBehind[NCLB],2002;IndividualswithDisabilitiesEducationImprovementAct[IDEA],2004) and the promise of an emerging body ofresearch on the effectiveness of academicinterventionforstudentswithmoderateandsevereintellectual disability (e.g., Hudson, Browder, &Wood, 2013; Spooner, Knight, Browder, & Smith,2012), necessitates that educators reconsidercurricula for this unique population. That is, theymust expand upon a well-established concept offunctionalcurriculum(Brownetal.,1979)andadoptnew expectations related to performance inacademiccontexts.This expanded vision for educating students withmoderateandsevereintellectualdisabilityincludestheexpectationthatallstudentsmakeprogress inthegeneraleducationcurriculumandworktowardachieving college readiness skills. Central to theseaimsisthedeliveryofhighqualityinstructionintheareaofliteracysothatstudentscanmoreeffectivelyacquire and demonstrate their understanding ofcontent knowledge through reading, writing,

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speaking, and listening (Kearns et al., 2010).Unfortunately,themajorityofresearchonliteracyinstructionforstudentswithmoderateandsevereintellectual disability has focused narrowly onreading sight words (Katims, 2000). Only recentlyhave researchers turned their attention to otherskillsthataretargetedduringliteracyinstructionforstudents with moderate and severe intellectualdisability. Several research teams have looked tothe English Language Arts (ELA) benchmarks, asdefined in the Common Core State Standards, forguidance (Conley, 2007; Kearns et al., 2010;Spooner & Browder, 2015) and have designedeffectiveinterventionsforteachingarangeofskills(e.g., Hudson et al., 2013; Hudson, Browder, &Jimenez, 2014;Mims, Hudson, & Browder, 2012).These important advances in the technology ofteaching for students with moderate and severeintellectual disability further support the need foranincreasedresearchemphasisoninterventionforthiscriticalsetofskills.Despite the emergence of soundmethods for theinstruction of studentswithmoderate and severeintellectualdisabilityinreading,therehasbeenlittleworkintheareaofwrittenexpression(Pennington&Delano,2014).Writtenexpressionplaysacriticalroleinthelivesofallstudentsasitservesarangeoffunctions in educational settings. Students usewriting to demonstrate their understanding ofcontentacrossacademicareas,tosharetheirideasabouttheworld,andtoengageinsocialinteractionswithpeers.Furthermore,writingskillsareessentialto college and career readiness as they arenecessary for success across a range of tasks inpostsecondary environments. Unfortunately, datasuggest that many students with and withoutmoderate and severe intellectual disability havedifficultyacquiringproficiencyinwrittenexpression(U.S. Department of Education, 2011). Writtenexpression is complex and involves thesimultaneousexecutionofaconstellationofskillstogenerate a specific message for a particularaudience. This task is often more difficult forstudents with moderate and severe intellectualdisability as they may present deficits in social

communication, fine motor skills, readingcomprehension,andperspective-taking.Fewresearchteamshaveinvestigatedstrategiesforteaching writing to students with moderate andsevere intellectual disability. Two reviews of theresearch literature on writing interventions forstudents with intellectual disability (Joseph &Konrad, 2009) and autism spectrum disorder(Pennington & Delano, 2012) indicated that themajority of investigationswere applied to spellingandwordconstructiontasks,but few involvedtheproductionofwrittennarratives. Theauthors alsonotedthatexplicitinstruction,assistivetechnology,andpredictablewriting routineswere consistentlyapplied as an intervention component. Morerecently,researchteamshaveappliedvariationsofthese components to a range of writing skillsincluding spelling (Purrazzella & Mechling, 2013),story writing (Pennington, Ault, Schuster, &Sanders, 2011; Pennington, Collins, Stenhoff,Turner, & Gunselman, 2014), using personalnarratives within text messages (Pennington,Saadatzi,Welch,&Scott,2014),andwritingresumecover letters (Pennington, Delano,& Scott, 2014).Across these studies, researchers consistentlyapplied response prompts (i.e., simultaneousprompting,systemofleastprompts,timedelay)butemployeddisparateformsoftechnology(i.e.,robottechnology, commercial writing software, tabletpersonalcomputers).The frequent application of technology-aidedinstruction (TAI) during writing intervention forstudents with moderate and severe intellectualdisability is not surprising as it offers severaladvantages to the emerging writer. First, writersmayusesoftwarethatallowsfortheconstructionofwritten products in the absence of a spellingrepertoire (Pennington, 2016). For example,studentsmayselectawordfromasoftwarearraytocomplete a sentence about a picture, or selectmultiplewordstoconstructasentenceaboutwhatthey read. Second, the digital presentation ofinstructional stimuli about which the student isexpected towritemaybedesigned in suchaway

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that relevant stimuli might be highlighted orrepeated. This increased salience of instructionalstimulimayfacilitatestudentattentionandstimuluscontrol. Finally, some students’ preferences forparticular featuresofthetechnologymayservetoreinforcetheirwritingbehavior(Pennington,2010).DatasuggestthatsomestudentspreferTAIinlieuoftraditionalteacher-deliveredintervention(Moore&Calvert,2000). In lightof theseadvantages, futureresearch in writing and moderate and severeintellectualdisabilitywill likely include innovationssteepedinTAI.The current literature on teaching writing to stu-dents with moderate and severe intellectualdisabilityispromisingandsuggestsapathforward(i.e.,explicit instruction, technology) indevelopingmore complex literacy repertoires for thispopulationofstudents. Interestingly, theguidanceoffered by the literature reflects practiceinconsistent with established guidelines forteaching writing; that is, themajority of researchteams have focused on writing withoutconsideration of ongoing reading instruction.Written expression plays a critical role in readingcomprehension.Whenstudentsareaskedtowritein the context of academic instruction, they areprovided with opportunities to make decisionsabout and therefore, reexamine the content(Graham&Harris,2016). In thecurrent study,wesought to investigate the effectiveness of atechnology-based instructional package on theopinion writing skills of three middle schoolstudents with moderate and severe intellectualdisability. The package included the digitalpresentationofgrade-alignedtextandsubsequentinstructiononwritinganopinionaboutthetext.Weaddressed the following research questions: (1) Isthere a functional relation between the use of atechnology-aidedinterventionpackageandtheper-cent of correct steps performed during students’opinionwritingtasks?and(2)Whatistheeffectofatechnology-based,task-analyzedwritinginterven-tion on the social validity as reported by theteacher?

TargetAudienceandRelevanceIn light of a limited body of research to guidepractitioners in teaching writing to students withdevelopmentaldisabilities,thispaperdemonstratesaneffectiveapplicationofassistivetechnology(AT)within the writing process for students acrossgrades 5 to 8. This papermay serve as a startingpointforarangeofpractitioners(e.g.,generalandspecial education teachers, speech-languagepathologists,assistivetechnologyspecialists)work-ingwithstudentswithdevelopmentaldisabilitiesindesigning rich, grade-aligned ELA instruction thataddresses skills in both reading and writtenexpression.

MethodParticipantsandSettingsThreeparticipants,ages10to14years,withmoder-ateandsevereintellectualdisabilityparticipatedinthestudy.Allthreestudentsreceivedspecialeduca-tionservicesinamiddlegradesself-containedclass-room(5thgradethrough8thgrade).ELAinstructionintheclassroom,atthetimeofthestudy,focusedonearlyliteracyorearlyreadingskillbuildingusingelementary aged books. Little to no grade-alignedELA instruction occurred in the classroom. Theparticipantsmetthefollowinginclusioncriteria:(a)educational eligibility for autism and/or anintellectuallydisability,(b)useoftheselectanddragfeatureonan iPad, (c) participation in statealter-nate assessment based on alternate achievementstandards, (d) regular school attendance, and (e)visualandauditoryacuity.Allthreeparticipantshadprevious experience using an iPad in educationalsettings.Studentsselectedtheirownpseudonyms.Frodowasa10-year-oldCaucasianfemaleinthe5thgrade. Frodowas identified as having amoderateintellectualdisability.Frodousedacombinationofspokenwordsandpicturesymbolstomakerequestsandhadlittletonoexposuretograde-alignedtextorgrade-alignedELAinstruction(SeeTable1).Jay was a 14-year-old Caucasian male in the 6th

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grade. Jay was identified as having a moderateintellectual disability and primarily used picturesymbolstocommunicate.Jayhadlittletonoexpo-sure to grade-aligned text or grade-aligned ELAinstruction(SeeTable1).

Shrekwasa14-year-oldCaucasianmaleinthe8thgrade.Shrekalsowasidentifiedashavingasignifi-cantintellectualdisabilityandusedpicturesymbolstocommunicate.Shrekhadlittletonoexposuretograde-alignedtextorELAinstruction(SeeTable1).

The interventionist was a graduate researchassistant with five years of experience in workingwithstudentswithmultipledisabilitiesandbehaviorconcerns. The interventionist and a graduateassistant (i.e., doctoral student in early childhoodeducation), who conducted inter-observerreliability and procedural fidelity checks, weretrained to conduct baseline and interventionprocedures.

The researchers conducted the study in a ruralpublic middle school in the southeastern United

States.Sessionswereconductedatleastthreetimesa week for five weeks of intervention. Sessionsoccurredinaroomattachedtothestudent’sregularclassroom. Each session lasted approximately 40minutes.

Materials

Adaptedstory.AnadaptedversionofOutsiderswasreadaloudviaastandalone iPadapp,Access:Lan-guage Arts (Attainment Company, 2016) withprofessional narration (a professionally recordedvoice, as opposed to a text-to-speech ‘robotic’voice). The adapted version of Outsiders wasrewrittenat3.5gradelevel,dividedintofivechapterpairings with reduced text and picture supports.Eachchapterpairingcontainedtwochapters(i.e.,1and2,3and4,etc.)andrangedfrom11-14pagesinlength.Picturesupportswereusedforkeyvocabu-larywords,primarilynounsandverbs,andcharac-ters.Eachpageheldapproximately42wordsand10picturesupports,alongwithunderlinedvocabularywords.Eachpagewasreadaloud,viatheapp,andat the end of each page the student pushed the

Table1ParticipantDemographics

Student/Gender/Ethnicity

Age/Grade IQTestGiven/IQ Disability Reading/VocalVerbalAbility

Frodo/Female/Caucasian

10/5th WISC-IV/50 SignificantIntellectualDisability

Non-Reader/VocalVerbal

Jay/Male/Caucasian

14/6th WISC-IV/<50

SignificantIntellectualDisability


Shrek/Male/Caucasian

14/8th WISC/<40 SignificantIntellectualDisability


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arrow to proceed to the next page. Students alsowere able to press the underlined vocabulary fordefinitions. Each chapter pairing took approxi-mately20to25minutestoread.iPadapp.GoBookapp(Attainment,2015)wasusedtodevelopawritinginterventiontoaccompanytheOutsidersstory.TheGoBookapppresentedvocabu-lary words (e.g., brother, group), instructionalwords (e.g., setting, main character, conclusion),andanoverviewofthetypesofsentencesrequiredforwritingaparagraph(i.e., introduction,opinion,fact, conclusion). The GoBook app used text-to-speechforthewritinginstructionandintervention,asopposedtoahumanrecordedvoiceaswasusedintheadaptedstory.Writing intervention. During the writing activity,GoBook presentedadisplaywitha statementandthreeoptionsfromwhichstudentsmadeaselectionby touching the choice on the iPad screen. Wedesigneddisplaysfortheselectionofidentifying:(a)awritingtopic,(b)anopiniononthechosentopic,(c)afactthatsupportedtheidentifiedopinion,(d)asecond fact that supported the identifiedopinion,(e)aconclusionstatement,and(f)anopportunitytochangeopinions.Inaddition,pageswerecreatedtoaddress error corrections, as needed, and pageswere created that allowed the students anopportunity to write their chosen responses bycompletingsentencesthroughtheuseofdraganddrop. More specifically, when presented with ascreen with the question, “What will you writeabout?”threechoiceswerepresentedincludingonedistractor(i.e.,acharacter,abigidea,orarandomtopicnotrelatedtothestory).Afterchoosingasub-ject to write about, the next display asked aboutwhichspecificstorytopictheparticipantwantedtowrite. For example, “Who do you want to writeabout? Cherry, Pony-boy, or Michelle Obama.”Again, two correct answers andone far distractorwere presented. Next, the student established anopinionaboutthetopicselected.Thenexttwodis-plays were designed to identify the facts thatbackedupthestudent’sopinion.Thedisplayscreenasked, “Which fact supports your opinion?”

followedbyawritingpromptthatfilledinthestu-dent’s opinion from the prior page (e.g., I thinkPony-boyisnicebecause______”).Thispromptwasfollowed by three response options including thecorrect answer, a response containing a fact thatsupported the opposite opinion, and a responsethatdidnotoccurinthestory.Ifthestudentschosethe opposing responseoption, then theywere di-rectedtoapagethatprovidedthemanopportunitytochangetheiropinionorchangetheirfactchoice.Lastly,ontheconclusiondisplay,thescreenasked,“What is the last sentence you want to writeabout?”Aconclusionstatementfortheanswerwasgiven, (i.e.,“Inconclusion, I thinkPony-boy isnicebecause…”)alongwiththreechoices.Eachdisplaypagehadpicturesupportsnexttothechoicesandpicturesupportsforkeywordssuchassentence type and characters. If the studentselected distractors, GoBook implemented errorcorrectionprocedures,firstinformingtheuserthatthe selection was incorrect, then eliminating(grayingout)theoption.Inaddition,thefactques-tionincludedahintbuttonlocatedatthebottomofthe screen. When students used this button, thescreen went to the page of the story where theanswer was located. The interventionist read thispagealoud to the student, thenwentback to thefact question. Interactive drag and drop screenswereplacedinbetweeneachdisplayquestionpage,where studentswere to touchandmove the sen-tences into the paragraph. After the interactivepagecameacompletedparagraphwithataskanaly-sis chart showing sentence number and sentencetypewithcheckmarkstoindicatecompletion.Thewriting intervention took approximately 10 to 15minutestocomplete.SeeTable2foranoverviewoftheintervention.ResearchDesignTopilottestandevaluatetheefficacyofthewritingintervention, the researchers used a preliminaryconcurrentmultipleprobeacrossparticipantssinglesubjectdesign(Horner&Baer,1978).Baselinedata

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Table2.1WritingIntervention

Pre-WritingActivitySteps DisplayScreen PracticeUtilizedAppreadsstoryaloudtostudent,whilestudentpushesarrowtoadvancepages

ChapterpairingofOutsidersadaptedstory

Readaloud

Paragraphvocabularyandinstructionalvocabulary

Four(4)vocabularywordsstudentswillseeforchoices(e.g.excited,horrible,disappointed,andunlucky)Introduction,Opinion,FactandConclusion

ReadaloudModel,Lead,Test(Myturn,ourturn,yourturn)Studenthasreadaloud

Paragraphstructure Introduction,Opinion,Fact,SupportingFact,andConclusionwithDefinitions

Readaloud

WritingActivitySteps DisplayScreen PracticeUtilizedIntroductioninstruction Theintroductionisthefirst

sentenceinyourparagraph.Intheintroductionyoutellwho,orwhat,wearewritingabout.

ReadaloudInterventionistasks,“Whatisthefirstsentence?”

Introductionwriting Whatwillyouwriteabout?Acharacterandsetting,abigidea,orabird?

Timedelayof5s,errorcorrection,leastintrusiveprompts

Introductionwriting Who/Whatdoyouwanttowriteabout?Ponyboy,Cherry,orGeorgeWashington?

Timedelayof5s,errorcorrection

Draganddropintroductionblank

Inthischapter,_______isamaincharacter.

Draganddropwithleastintrusiveprompts,timedelayof5s,readaloudsentenceforreview

Opinioninstruction Inyoursecondsentence,youwillwriteyouropinion.Anopinionisaviewpoint.Youshareyourthoughts,feelings,orbeliefsaboutsomethingorsomeonefromthestory.

Readaloud.Interventionistasks,“Whatisthesecondsentence?”

Opinionwriting WhatisyouropinionofPonyboy?IthinkPonyboyis______.Nice,trouble,orscientific


Draganddropintroductionandopinionsentences

Dragyourintroductionandopinionsentencesintotheboxtostartconstructingyourparagraph


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WritingActivitySteps DisplayScreen PracticeUtilizedSentencechartreview Nowyouhaveyourfirsttwo

sentences.Let’sreadyourparagraphsofar:Inthischapter,Ponyboyisnice.Ithinkheisnicebecausehelooksoutforhisfriends.Anotherreason…

Readaloudandreview.Completedsentencesandsentencetypes

Factinstruction Next,youneedtosupportyouropinionwithafactfromthestory.Afactisadetailofpieceofinformationfoundinthestory.

Readaloud.Interventionistasks,“Whatisthethirdsentence?”

Factwriting IthinkPonyboyisnicebecause_______.Helooksoutforhisfriends,hesnuckintothetheaterwithoutpaying,helikestobakecakes.


Changeopinion(onlyiswrongchoiceofopinion)

Sneakinginthetheaterwithoutpayingisnotnice.DoyouwanttochangeyouropinionofPonyboyfrom“Ponyboyisnice”to“Ponyboyistrouble”?Yes,IhavechangedmymindorNo,Iwanttochangemyfact.

Studentchooses.Ifselectiontochangeopinion,gobackto“Whatisyouropinionof____?”andrepeatremainingoptions(onlyonetime).Ifselects“No,”allowtocontinuewithwritingparagraph.

Draganddropfactsentence Dragyourfactsentenceintotheboxtostartconstructingyourparagraph.


Sentencechartreview Nowyouhaveyourfirstthreesentences.Let’sreadyourparagraphsofar:Inthischapter,Ponyboyisamaincharacter.IthinkPonyboyisnice.Ithinkheisnicebecausehelooksoutforhisfriends.Anotherreason…

Readaloudandreviewcompletedsentencesandsentencetypes

Factinstruction Remember,afactisadetail,orpieceofinformationfromthestorythatsupportsyouropinion.YouwrotePonyboyisnice.Youneedtofindanotherfacttosupportyouropinion.

Readaloud.Interventionistasks,“Whatsentenceisnext?”

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WritingActivitySteps DisplayScreen PracticeUtilizedFactwriting Chooseanotherfactthat

supportsyouropinionthatPonyboyisnice.AnotherreasonIthinkPonyboyisniceisbecause________.Hemadefriendswiththegirls,hestayedoutlate,hehasabicycle


Draganddropfactsentence Dragyourfactsentenceintotheboxtostartconstructingyourparagraph.


Sentencechartreview Nowyouhaveyourfirstfoursentences.Let’sreadyourparagraphsofar:Inthischapter,Ponyboyisamaincharacter.IthinkPonyboyisnice.Ithinkheisnicebecausehelooksoutforhisfriends.AnotherreasonIthinkPonyboyisniceisthathemadefriendswiththegirls.

Readaloudandreviewcompletedsentencesandsentencetypes.

Conclusioninstruction Thefinalstepistowritetheconclusion.Theconclusioniswhereyousummarizeyourparagraph.

Readaloud.Interventionistasks,“Whatisthelastsentence?”

Conclusionwriting WhatisthelastsentenceyouwanttowriteaboutPonyboy?Ithinkitisgoodthat______.Ponyboyisnice,JohnnyisPonyboy’sfriend,Ponyboylikesmonkeys


Sentencechartreview Welldone!Youhavecreateda5sentenceparagraph:Inthischapter,Ponyboyisamaincharacter.IthinkPonyboyisnice.Ithinkheisnicebecausehelooksoutforhisfriends.AnotherreasonIthinkPonyboyisniceisthathemadefriendswiththegirls.Inconclusion,IthinkthatitisgoodthatPonyboyisnice.

Readaloudandreviewcompletedsentencesandsentencetypes

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were collected for a minimum of three sessionsacrossparticipants.Oncedatawere stable for thefirstparticipant,weintroducedtheinterventionandcollecteddataacrosstheremainingstorychapters.Onceweobservedachangeineachparticipant,weintroducedtheinterventiontothenextparticipantand continued across the remaining chapters.Wecollected and grapheddata on the percent of un-prompted correct responses across baseline,intervention,andmaintenancesessions.DependentVariablesandDataCollectionThedependentvariablewasthepercentofcorrectsteps performed during students’ opinion writingtasks.Wescoredstepsasperformedcorrectlyifthestudent independentlydraggedacorrectresponsein position to complete the sentence within 5seconds.Fortopicandopinionstatements,studentswere required to select one of two correctresponses. For supporting facts and conclusionstatements, students were required to select asingleaccurateresponse.Duringthebaselinecondi-tion, the interventionist readeachwritingpromptandwaited5secondsforastudentresponse.A“+”wasrecordedforacorrectresponseanda“–”wasrecordedforanincorrectornoresponse.Duringtheinterventionsessions,theinterventionistscoredthestudents’levelofpromptneededtocompleteare-sponse. An “I” was recorded for independentcorrect, “V” for verbal prompt, “M” for modelprompt,and“P”forphysicalprompt.To facilitate engagement during each session, theinterventionistredirectedtheparticipanttolookatthe iPad and participate by turning the page. Thelevel of engagement for each student was ratedweeklyusingthefollowingscale:1)Doesnotpartici-pateatall(e.g.,doesnotlookat/inthedirectionoftheiPad);2)Passivelyparticipates(e.g.,looksattheiPad or teacher as they respond, but makes noattempt to respond to teacher directions or iPadapplication directions without assistance); 3)Occasionallyparticipates(e.g., looksatthe iPadorteacher as they respond and makes attempts torespondtolessthanhalfofthequestionsasked);4)

Usually participates (e.g., looks at the iPad orteacher as they respond and makes attempts torespondtoatleast50%ofthequestionsasked);5)Activelyparticipatesmostofthetime(e.g.,looksatthe iPad or teacher as they respond and makesattempts to respond to more than 75% of thequestionsasked);and6)Activelyparticipatesallofthetime(e.g., looksattheiPadorteacherastheyrespond and makes attempts to respond to allquestionsasked).Procedural fidelity and interobserver agreement(IOA).Asecondobserverscored33%ofthebaselineandinterventionsessionsusinganimplementationfidelity checklist.Wecalculatedprocedural fidelitybydividingthenumberofstepsdeliveredcorrectlybythetotalnumberofproceduralstepsandmulti-plied by 100. Procedural fidelity for baseline andinterventionsessionswas98%(94%-100%).AthirdresearchercollectedIOAdataon66%ofproceduralfidelityobservations.WecalculatedIOAbydividingthe numbers of agreements by the number ofagreementsanddisagreementsandmultiplyingby100.IOAwas92%(rangeof85-100%).We also calculated IOA on the number of correctstudentresponsedatafor29%ofthebaselineandinterventionsessions.IOAwascalculatedbytakingthenumberofagreementsdividedbythenumberofagreementsplusdisagreementsandmultiplyingby100. IOA forbaselineand interventionsessionswas94%(rangeof91-100%).Social validity. At the end of the study, the re-searcher collected social validity data on the pur-pose,process,andoutcomeofthestudyfromtheclassroom teacher. The special education teachercompleted a social validity questionnaire with 16Likert scale items and several open-ended ques-tions.Likertscaleitemsincludedquestionssuchas:“Wastheapplicationsuccessfulinengagingthestu-dent?” “Were the picture icons helpful?” “Werelearningpartsoftheparagraphavaluableactivity?”and“Inoticedtimeontaskincreasedforotherclass-room activities.” Open-ended questions were inalignmentwith the Likert-scale questions to allow

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the teacher to expound on student observations.Teacher answers gave further insight toquestionssuch as: “To what extent did your student showengagement?” “Were there toomany or too fewpictureicons?”and“Doyoulikeusingyourownsys-temofleastpromptsandpraiseorwouldyoupreferthattobebuiltintotheprogram?”

Procedures

Baseline.The interventionistandstudentsatside-by-sidewiththeiPadplacedbetweenthem.Thestu-dentslistenedtoachapterpairing(insequence)ofthe adapted text, Outsiders read by the Access:Language Arts app. After the read-aloud, theinterventionist opened the writing activity in theGoBookapp.GoBookpresentedthefollowingseriesofspokenprompts:(a)Whatwillyouwriteabout?(eitheramain character,big idea,or settingwerepresented as options); (b) Who/Where/What doyouwanttowriteabout?(thisvarieddependingonthe topic chosen); (c) What is your opinion of_____?(filledinwithspecificwho,what,orwhereidentifiedfrompriorstep);(d)Whichfactsupportsyouropinion?(e)Chooseanotherfactthatsupportsyouropinion;and (f)What isyourconclusionsen-tence?Threeresponseoptionswerepresentedwitheach prompt (e.g., I think Ponyboy was good be-cause…. he was nice to Cherry; he was mean toCherry;abus).Betweeneachoftheabovewritingprompts, the student had an opportunity to draganddropmissingwordsfromthesentenceintothecorrectblanks.Forexample,thefollowingsentencewouldappear“Ithink______wasgoodbecausehewas_____toCherry.”andthestudentwouldhavetodraganddropthemissingwords(Ponyboy;nice)intothecorrectblankspace.Studentsweregiven5seconds to initiate a response for filling in theblanks.Ifthestudentrespondedcorrectlytoawrit-ing prompt, the interventionist scored a “+” on adata collection sheet. If the student selected anincorrect response or did not respond within 5seconds,theinterventionistscoreda“-”.Through-outbaseline,prompting topromoteacorrect stu-dentresponsewasnotprovidedandreinforcementfor a correct response or error correction for an

incorrectresponsewasnotprovided.Studentswerepraised for attending behaviors throughoutbaseline.

Intervention. At the onset of each interventionsession, the student listened to a reading of thetargeted chapters from Outsiders in the Access:Language Arts app. Once the read-aloud wasfinished,theinterventionistintroducedthewritingactivityintheGoBookapp.First,theinterventionistpresented five targeted vocabulary words associ-ated with the opinion paragraphs (i.e., sentence,paragraph, fact, introduction, conclusion).GoBookpresented each word and read each definitionaloud. Second, the interventionist presented thefive-sentence paragraph structure (i.e.,introduction, opinion, fact, fact, conclusion) usingGoBookandamodel, lead,testprocedure(Larkin,2001).Theinterventionistmodeledafive-sentenceparagraphusingagraphicorganizerwithintheapp.Theinterventionistpresentedthesentencedescrip-tion (i.e.,“The introduction is the firstsentence inyourparagraph.Theintroductiontellswho,orwhatwearewritingabout.”)whiletouchingtheintroduc-tionbuttonpreprogrammedintotheapp.Thentheinterventionist and the student pressed theintroduction button together. Finally, the studentindependently pressed the introduction button tostate the rule. This instruction continued for theremainingpartsoftheparagraph.Afterinstructionon the sentence type, the students applied theirknowledge by creating their own five-sentenceopinionparagraphs.GoBookpresentedthestimulus“Whattopicdoyouwanttowriteabout?”andpre-sented three response options. If the student re-sponded incorrectly, GoBook presented an errorcorrectionandanauditoryprompt,“The(incorrectresponse)wasnotapartofourstory.”Theappthenrepeatedthestep,butwiththeincorrectresponseoptionhighlightedingrayandinactive.Thisprocesswasrepeateduntilthestudentselectedthecorrectresponseorwasleftwithasinglecorrectresponse.Ifthestudentdidnotrespondwithin5seconds,theinterventionist implemented a system of leastprompts procedure. First, the interventionistpresentedaverbalpromptandwaited5secondsfor

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the student to respond. If the student did not re-spond,theinterventionistpresentedthenextlevelofpromptinapredeterminedhierarchy(i.e.,verbalprompt,modelprompt,physicalprompt).Afterthestudentidentifiedatopic,thenextscreenintheapppresented an opportunity for the student to draganddrop their response to complete an introduc-tion sentence (e.g., I want to write about____________).Theirnewlycreatedsentencewasplaced into a graphic organizer in the “introsentence” spot as the first sentence. This sameprocess continued until the student identified allsentences in the five-sentence opinion paragraph(i.e., their opinion, two supporting facts from thestory, and a matching conclusion). Students werepresented with the same chapter pair for threeconsecutive sessions, but had an opportunity towrite about a new topic and opinion each time.Subsequently,wepresentedasinglebaselineprobeon the next chapter pair before enteringinterventionwiththatchapterpair.Weconductedthese probes to assess whether students hadgeneralized their paragraph writing skills tountrained chapter content. We collectedmaintenance data approximately twoweeks afterthestudentsfinishedtheintervention.Maintenanceprobeswereconductedusingprocedures identicaltothoseinbaselineconditions.

ResultsThepercentofcorrectstepsperformedduringstu-dents’ opinion writing tasks during baseline andintervention sessions are depicted in Figure 1.Frodo’s performance was stable during baselinesessions (i.e., 50% across all three probes).Following the introduction of intervention onChapters1and2,herperformanceimprovedtoanaverage73%ofcorrectsteps(i.e.,70,70,80%).Priorto intervention on Chapter 3 and 4, Frodoperformed60%ofstepscorrectly.Duringinterven-tion on Chapters 3 and 4, Frodo averaged correctperformanceof53%ofsteps(i.e.,30,60,70).Priorto instruction, on Chapters 5 and 6, Frodocompleted60%ofsteps,whereasduringinstructiontheaveragewas63%of completed steps (i.e., 50,

60,80).Finally,priortoinstructioninChapters7and8,Frodocompleted60%ofsteps.Followinginstruc-tion,67%of the steps (i.e.,60,70,70)werecom-pleted. At 4 and 5 weeks following intervention,Frodo completed 60% and 70% of steps,respectively. Overall, Frodo increased her meanperformance from baseline to intervention condi-tionsby14%andregardingeffectsize,thepercentof non-overlapping data (PND)were calculated at86%(Scruggs&Mastropieri,2001).Duringbaselinesessions,Jaycompletedanaverageof 52.5% of steps correctly (i.e., 60, 40, 60, 50).Following the introduction of intervention onChapters 1 and 2, Jay averaged a 40% correctcompletion of steps (i.e., 30, 50, 40). Prior tointervention on Chapters 3 and 4, Jay completed50% of steps correctly. During intervention onChapters3and4,Jayaveragedcorrectcompletionof70%ofsteps(i.e.,70,60,80).Priortoinstruction,onChapters5and6,60%ofstepswerecompletedcorrectly,whereasduringinstructionJaycompletedanaverageof73%ofstepscorrectly(i.e.,70,60,70).Finally,priortoinstructioninChapters7and8,Jaycompleted40%ofstepscorrectly.Followinginstruc-tion, 63% of stepswere completed correctly (i.e.,60,60,70).At3weeks following intervention, Jaycompleted 60% of steps correctly. Overall, Jay in-creased his mean performance from baseline tointerventionconditionsby7.5%withaPNDof38%.Shrek completed an average of 44% of stepscorrectly during baseline sessions (i.e., 50, 30, 50,50, 40). During intervention on Chapters 1 and 2,Shrekaveragedcorrectcompletionof73%ofsteps(i.e.,30,90,100).PriortointerventiononChapters3 and 4, 50% of steps were completed correctly.DuringinterventiononChapters3and4,Shrekaver-agedcorrectcompletionof63%ofsteps(i.e.,60,60,70).Priortoinstruction,onChapters5and6,70%ofsteps were completed correctly, whereas duringinstructionanaverageof67%of stepswere com-pleted correctly (i.e., 50, 70, 80). Finally, prior toinstruction in Chapters 7 and 8, Shrek completed50%ofstepscorrectly.Followinginstruction,Shrek

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Figure1Percentofunpromptedcorrectstepsinopinionwritingprocessacrossthechapterpairsofanadapted

versionofOutsiders.

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completed77%ofsteps(i.e.,70,90,70)correctly.At2weeksfollowingintervention,Shrekcompleted60%ofstepscorrectly.Overall,Shrekincreasedhismean performance from baseline to interventionconditionsby23.5%withaPNDof85%.SocialValidityOverall,theteacherreportedfavorableperceptionsof the study components.On the Likert scale, theteacherscoredfiveitemsas“stronglyagree”includ-ing(a)theappwasengagingtothestudents,(b)thereadaloudofOutsiderswasappropriateforthestu-dents,(c)thepictureiconswerehelpfulthroughthestories, (d) assessing the student’s ability tocorrectlyanswerquestionsinaguidedwritingactiv-ity is valuable, and (e) the incorrect-answerpages(pages with corrective feedback) were useful inhelping to re-direct students to make correctchoices during their writing activity. The teacherscored8itemsas“agree.”Theseitemsincluded(a)learningthepartsofaparagraphwasvaluable forher students to learn about writing, (b) studentsshowed an increase in vocabulary after theimplementation of the intervention, (c) time-on-taskincreasedaftertheappwasintroducedtothestudent, (d) the intervention was important andappropriate, (e) due to the app, her students hadbetter access, (f) due to the app, she was moreeffective in teaching age/grade appropriate ELAcurriculum, (g) the teacher was interested incontinuingtheuseofthewritingactivityinherclass-room,and(h)thehintfeaturewashelpfultothestu-dents. The teacher scored one item as “neutral;”(i.e.,theELAappwasmorerelevantthanwhatwaspreviouslyimplementedforELAinstruction).In addition,we asked the teacher to complete anopen-ended survey related to the instructionalpackage. Overall, the teacher’s responses werepositive. The teacher reported that studentswereincreasinglymoreengagedastheybecamefamiliarwith the app and activity. The teacher alsosuggested that the “right” number of picturesupportswereusedintheread-aloudstoryandthatshewouldprefer tocontinueusing theapp in the

classroom. The teacher reported that the averagelessonwasanappropriatelength(25-45min).How-ever,theteacherindicatedtheappmightbemoresuited for a 1:1 instructional arrangement andsuggested that “the paragraph definitions, para-graphstructure,andstoryisalotformorethanonestudenttostayengagedinasagroup.”Inaddition,theteacherwarnedaboutcarefulselectionofhighlydisparate distractors for future studies or implica-tions for practice as shementioned that some ofthesedistractorswere“funresponsesandgrabbedstudents’ attention.” The teacher offered severalrecommendations for the improvement of thewriting intervention app including (a) incorporatemore human-like voices, (b) embed additionalpositive feedbackpromptswithin theprogram, (c)reduce the number of words per page, and (d)ensure that the distractor item did not includepotentiallyreinforcingstimuli(i.e.,fooditems).EngagementInadditiontosocialvalidity,aweeklyself-reportedengagement rating was collected. While theengagement measure did not include a directmeasureofdailybaselineandinterventionsessions,the interventionist self-reported high levels ofengagementwithanoverallratingof5.12indicatingthatthestudentsactivelyparticipatedmostofthetime (e.g., looksat the iPador teacheras theyre-spondandmakesattemptstorespondtomorethan75% of the questions asked). Frodo’s and Shrek’saverageengagementscoreswere4.75,(range=3–6)and4.8(range=4-6),respectively.Jayshowedveryhigh engagement at 5.83, which indicated nearly100%engagementthrougheverysession,withtheexceptionofonesessionwitharatingof5.OutcomesandBenefitsInthecurrentinvestigation,theresearchersdemon-strated that students with moderate and severeintellectual disability could improve their skills inwritten expression, specifically opinion writing,whenprovidedwithappropriateassistive technol-ogy supports and explicit instruction. Participants

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used features of the GoBook app to circumventchallenges often consistent with moderate andsevere intellectual disability to produce apermanentproductdetailingtheiropinionaboutanadapted and grade-aligned fictional novel. Forexample,GoBookpermitted studentswith limitedspellingrepertoiresandfinemotorimpairmentstoconstructnarrativesbydraggingwholewordsfromachoicearraytocompletesentences.Furthermore,the GoBook package incorporated a range ofsupportsforemergingreadersincludingstorynarra-tion,integratedvocabularyinstruction,andhintsforsupportedwordselection.Thesefactorsmayhavecontributedtotheoverall,interventionistreported,highlevelsofengagementbythestudentswhileus-ingGoBook.It is also important to note that GoBookincorporatedresearch-basedpromptingproceduresthat minimized the need for an adult interactionduring instruction.Theuseof increasinglyautono-mous instructional software is critical for studentswithmoderateandsevereintellectualdisabilityasitmay increase the time that students are able toworkwithoutadultassistance,perhapspromotingthe view that persons with moderate and severeintellectual disability can be active participants intheir own learning. In addition, this investigationtargetedtheselectionandsupportingofstudents’opinions. Though in the current study, opinionswere directly linked to a specific and limited con-text, it is important to note the instruction ofexpressinganopinionisconsistentwithprinciplesofpromoting self-determination for persons withmoderateandsevereintellectualdisability.

DiscussionThe purpose of this investigationwas to evaluatethe effectiveness of a technology-based instruc-tional package on the writing skills of threeparticipantswithmoderateandsevere intellectualdisability.Despitevariabilityinperformanceacrossparticipantsand instructionalunits (i.e., chapters),allparticipantsimprovedtheirperformanceinwrit-ing tasks from baseline to intervention conditions

and in a relatively short period of time.Furthermore,theymaintainedlevelsofrespondingabove those during baseline conditions. Thesefindings are promising in that they suggest thatstudents with moderate and severe intellectualdisabilitycanbenefit fromTAIthatsimultaneouslytargets skills in reading and written expression.Interestingly, only Frodo demonstrated animprovementfrompretreatmentbaselineprobestoprobes conducted prior to introducing a newchapterpairing.Anincreaseinstudentperformanceon these chapter probes might suggest thegeneralizationofwritingskillstonovelcontent.Thislackofgeneralizationacrossparticipantsmayhavebeenaresultofexposuretoaninsufficientnumberof exemplars (e.g. different reading passages)and/orthelimiteddurationofthestudy.Thecurrent interventionpackagereflectsadepar-turefromtheextantliteratureonwritinginstructionforstudentswithmoderateandsevereintellectualdisabilitybutisconsistentwiththedevelopmentofwritten expression in general education settingswhereby students continuously apply a range ofwritingskillsacrossmultipleareasofacademiccon-tent. Students in the current studywere taught aclusterofwritingskills includingvocabularyusage,sentence completion, paragraphorganization, andopinionwritinginthecontextofgradeappropriatetext. This complexitymayhavecontributed to thelimited improvement across participants whileobscuringprogressacrossskillsindependentofeachother.Furthermore, this investigation served to pilot anewsoftwareapplicationforteachingwritingskillsto studentswithmoderateand severe intellectualdisability.Severalapplicationshavebeendevelopedforsupportingstudentswithdisabilitiesduringwrit-ingactivities.Themajorityof theseprogramspro-vide students with accommodations (e.g., text tospeech)ormodifications (e.g.,wordbanks)duringtheproductionoftext.Unfortunately,therearefewprograms that embed explicit writing instructiontargetedfor thispopulation.TheGoBookapppro-vided controlled presentation of instructional

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stimuli,prompts,andfeedback.Thesefeaturesareadvantageousastheymayresultinfewererrorsininstructional delivery and greater studentindependence from adult supervision duringinstruction.Finally,thecurrentstudymayservetoinformnewinnovations in the development of morecomprehensive literacysoftware for studentswithmoderate and severe intellectual disability. Forexample, teacher feedback and studentperformance indicate a need for the reduction oftheamountoftextdisplayedoneachscreenandanincreaseduseofprogrammedpositivefeedback inordertoencourageengagement.Itisalsoimportantto note that the authors aligned instructional tar-gets within the app to grade appropriate ELAstandards. This featuremayenhance theutilityoftheapp,asteachersandpeerswithoutdisabilitiesmayfinditeasiertoincludestudentswithmoderateand severe intellectual disability in generaleducation instruction. This alignment also posesnewchallengesforresearchersandprogrammersinthe development of TAI that is aligned fromkindergartentograduation.Despite our overall positive findings, severallimitationsmustbeaddressed.First,weconducteda single probe prior to the introduction ofintervention for JayandShrek.Though thesedatawereconsistentwiththepatternsexpressedinthefirst threebaselinedatapoints, it isplausible thatthese data may not have accurately reflectedparticipants’steadylevelofresponding.Second,wedidnotassess student’s readingof thewordsandpicturesusedwithintheadaptedtextandapportheengagementwiththeunderlinedvocabularywordswithintheadaptedtext.Thoughallvocabularywaspresentedastextorpicturesandinadigitizedvoice,variabilityinstudentsreadingrepertoiremayhaveimpacted performance across chapters. Third, theamountofcontent(numberofpages)programmedinto the pilot GoBook app triggered instability,resulting in intermittent malfunctions in the soft-ware. Thesemalfunctions required the student towait while the program rebooted and potentially

affectedstudents'motivationandtheirsuccesswiththeinterventionduringthatsession.Acrossatleastfivesessions,theprogramshutdownandrequiredthe interventionist to reset the app and pagethroughtheappuntil thestudentwasbacktothelocationwheretheyhadbeenworking.Fourth,itisvaluabletonotethattwoofthreestudentsdemon-strated an effective intervention based on PNDwhile the third demonstrated an ineffectiveintervention PND (Scruggs & Mastropieri, 2001).However, it is also noted that there are concernsovertheuseofPNDstomeasureeffectsizeinsinglesubject design (Olive & Franco, 2008) and overallthethirdstudentdidhavea7.5%change inmeanfrombaselinetointervention.Therefore,theresultsofthispilotstudyserveasafirststep inregardtoavailable supports foropinionwriting for studentswithmoderateandsevere intellectualdisability.Afifth limitation was the use of a nonstandardizedsocial validity measure. Although it is common insinglesubjectresearchtousearesearcher-createdmeasure,astandardizedmeasurewouldhavebeenstronger. Finally, the small numberof participantslimit thegeneralizabilityof findings. In contrast totheselimitations,whenconsideredwiththelitera-ture base on opinion writing for students withmoderate and severe intellectual disability, thecurrentstudyaddstotheoverallevidenceforusingthismethodwiththispopulation.In summary, we evaluated the efficacy of aninnovative TAI package for improving writtenexpressionforstudentswithmoderateandsevereintellectualdisability.Thecurrentbodyofliteratureinthisareaprovideslittleguidanceforteachingstu-dents with moderate and severe intellectualdisability to perform complex writing tasks. Evenless guidance is availableonhow to embed thosetasksintoongoingacademicinstruction.Wesoughtto address these issues by developing aninterventionpackagealignedwithgrade-levelskills,compatiblewithongoinginstructioninthegeneraleducationcurriculum.Wefeelthisstudyservesasapilotstudythatcanbeusedtoguideotherworkinthisarea.Thedevelopmentofwrittencommunica-tioniscriticaltothesuccessofallstudentsandhas

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vast implications across every aspectof one’s life.Therefore, it isessential that researcherscontinueto investigatenewandeffectivewriting strategiesthat can be implemented inways that reflect theubiquitous nature of written expression in thenaturalworld.

DeclarationsThis content is solely the responsibility of the au-thorsanddoesnotnecessarilyrepresenttheofficialviews of ATIA. The authors disclosed financialrelationships with the Department of Education,Institute of Education Sciences, and AttainmentCompany. No non-financial disclosures were re-portedbytheauthorsofthispaper.

AcknowledgmentsSupport for the research referenced within thisarticlewasprovidedbyseveralgrantsandcontractsincluding, inpart,byContractED-IES-14-C-0018ofthe U.S. Department of Education, Institute ofEducation Sciences, awarded to The AttainmentCompany. The opinions expressed do notnecessarily reflect the position or policy of theDepartment of Education, and no officialendorsementshouldbeinferred.

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Opinion Paragraph Writing Intervention for Students with ... · Opinion Paragraph Writing Intervention for Students with Significant Disability Pamela J. Mims, East Tennessee State