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This longitudinal randomized-control trial investigated the effectiveness of

scientifically based reading instruction for students with IQs ranging from 40 to 80,
including students with intellectual disability (ID). Students were randomly assigned
into treatment (n - 76) and contrast (n = 65) groups. Students in the treatment group
received intervention instruction daily in small groups of 1 to 4 for approximately 40
to 50 min for 1 to 4 academic years. On average, students in the treatment group
made significantly greater progress than students in the contrast condition on nearly
all language and literacy measures. Results demonstrate the ability of students with
low IQs, including students with mild to moderate ID, to learn basic reading skills
when provided appropriate, comprehensive reading instruction for an extended
period of time (p.287).

In a review comparing students with ID to students with LD, Caffrey and Fuchs
(2007) found that students with ID made smaller gains after intervention and
experienced more difficulty transferring new information, though both groups
responded favorably to constant time delay, direct instruction, and strategy
instruction (p. 288).

In contrast to explicit and systematic instruction in the areas of phonics, phonemic


awareness, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension, most research related to
teaching reading to students with ID has focused narrowly on training isolated skills
such as sight word reading or letter-sound correspondences (see reviews by
Browder, Wakeman, Spooner, Ahlgrim-Delzell, & Algozzine, 2006; Browder & Xin,
1998; Conners, 2003; Joseph & Seery, 2004; Saunders, 2007). Recent research,
however, suggests that students with ID can be taught to process the internal
structure of spoken and printed words (e.g., Bradford, Shippen, Alberto, Houchins, &
Flores, 2006; Conners, Rosenquist, Sligh, Atwell, & Kiser, 2006; Joseph & Seery,
2004; Stewart, Hayashi, & Saunders, 2010). Further, recent studies also show that
students with low IQs, including those who are nonverbal, respond positively to
intensive, individualized, comprehensive research-based reading instruction
(Browder, Ahlgrim-Delzell, Courtade, Gibbs, & Flowers, 2008; Browder, AhlgrimDelzell, Flowers, & Baker, 2012; Lemons & Fuchs, 2010) (p. 288).

These findings converge with earlier work by McGrew and Evans (2003), who found
that IQ did not predict academic achievement as accurately as many practitioners
assumed. McGrew and Evans (2003) reported that IQ only accounts for 40% to 50%
of concurrent academic achievement, leaving the majority (50%-60%) of
achievement related to variables outside of intelligence. Last, some students with ID
required not only more intensive instruction but also more carefully scaffolded
instruction within a narrow band of skills (Allor, Champlin, Gifford, & Mathes, 2010;
Allor, Gifford, A1 Otaiba, Miller, & Cheatham, 2013) (p. 289).

Unlike prior research, we provided comprehensive instruction across multiple years,


allowing us to determine the relatively long-term impact of evidence-based
instruction for students with low IQs. These findings extend our previous findings, as
the positive trends reported earlier continued through the fourth (final) year of our
study (Allor, Mathes, Roberts, Cheatham, et al., 2010; Allor, Mathes, Roberts, Jones,
et al., 2010) (p. 301).

The sobering reality is that a typical student in our treatment group with an IQ of 75
(borderline range) would require 52 weeks of intervention to move from 20 words per
minute (wpm) to 60 wpm on firstgrade passages. Thus, based on our data, students
with IQs between 70 and 80 require approximately one and a half school years to
move from reading 20 wpm to 60 wpm, the average reading fluency of an ending first
grader. A student in the mild range (56-69) would require approximately three
academic years to move from 10 wpm to 60 wpm. Students with IQs in the moderate
range (40-55) would require approximately three and a half years to move from 0
wpm to 20 wpm, which is roughly similar to the scores of students without disabilities
midway through first grade. This is consistent with a developmental lag hypothesis
as demonstrated by Wei and colleagues (2011). Students with lower IQs require
intensive instruction to make these meaningful gains. Skills that are typically learned
in a matter of weeks for students without disabilities may take years for students with
ID. The relatively large sample across a broad range of low IQ scores increases the
likelihood of generalizability to other samples ( p. 302).
We did find significant differences favoring the treatment condition for reading
comprehension with a moderate effect size (ES = 0.69), but not for listening
comprehension (ES = 0.01). These findings are encouraging, given that after 3 years
significant differences in comprehension had not been found (see Allor, Mathes,
Roberts, Cheatham, et al., 2010) (p. 302).

Our findings from the present study have several important implications for serving
students with low IQs in general and special education settings. First and foremost,
students with low IQs, including those with ID and those with IQs in the borderline
range (i.e., 70-80), should be provided with evidence-based reading instruction.
Although it might seem unsurprising to some that these students made meaningful
progress, our study provides strong empirical evidence of reading progress across
several academic years with a relatively large sample of students with low IQs who
participated in a randomized control trial in which the treatment was delivered by
highly trained interventionists. Specifically, our data indicate what is possible for
students with low IQs if they are given access to evidence-based reading instruction.
The curriculum is very explicit and systematic and was delivered with fidelity,
providing very consistent, explicit, and repetitive routines, focusing on key skills, and
delivering clear and explicit modeling. Thus, students with low IQs do benefit from
comprehensive reading programs that were designed for struggling readers and
readers with LD, but progress is slower (p. 302-3).

this study is both a clear demonstration of the potential of students with low IQs
to achieve meaningful literacy goals and a clear demonstration of the persistence
and intensity it takes to help children with low IQs learn to read. This longitudinal
study provides solid empirical support for educators to provide intensive,
comprehensive, research-based reading instruction to all students, including those
with mild or moderate ID (p.304).

Allor, J. H., Mathes, P. G., Roberts, J. K., Cheatham, J. P., & Al Otaiba, S. (2014). Is
scientifically based reading instruction effective for students with below-average IQs?
Exceptional Children, 80(3), 287-306.

It is encouraging that many students with significant cognitive disabilities (SCD)


demonstrated an initial level of skill in word and passage reading. Another positive
finding is that the percentage of students obtaining benchmarks increased as grade
level increased. This mirrors recent longitudinal findings (Wei, Blackorby, & Schiller,
2011) demonstrating that students with ID continue to make gains in reading skill
(i.e., letter-word identification and passage comprehension) throughout the high
school years. In other words, children with SCD do not appear to reach a plateau in
their early school years. This finding, coupled with the overall low level of reading
observed, appears to indicate that schools need to continue focusing efforts on
improving reading instruction for children with SCD throughout high school.

When our results (which could be characterized as the status quo) are compared to
the results of targeted intervention studies, it is apparent that improvements could be
made. For example, over 50% of children with ID in Grades 1 through 4 were able to
reach the first-grade oral reading fluency benchmark (40 words correct in 1 min) after
receiving 2 to 3 years of intensive reading instruction provided by Allor and
colleagues (Allor, Mathes, Roberts, Cheatham et al., 2010). In the current sample,
only 14.97% and 24.67% of children with ID in Grades 3 and 4, respectively, met this
mark (p. 419).

Additionally, as students with SCD are learning to read, "their instructional programs
need to provide them more direct instruction of these skills and our measurement
systems need to reflect performance and progress in their learning" (Tindal et al.,
2003, p. 491) (p. 421). If students with SCD are to improve their reading skills,
their teachers will have to embrace the role of being a prescriptive teacher. In this
role, teachers select practices that hold promise (e.g., interventions that have been
empirically validated to work for struggling readers without SCD), implement them,
and use individual student data to evaluate responsiveness to the interventions (p.
423).

Lemons, C. J., Zigmond, N., Kloo, A. M., Hill, D. R., Mrachko, A. A., Paterra, M. F.,
Bost, T., & Davis, S. M. (2013). Performance of students with significant cognitive
disabilities on early-grade curriculum-based measures of word and passage reading
fluency. Exceptional Children, 79(4), 408-426.

Teachers of children with DS and ID need to incorporate more than sight-word only
approaches in their reading instruction. The small but growing research base
indicates that classroom teachers should no longer be asking: "Should I use a
sightword program or a phonics program?" Instead, teachers should be providing
comprehensive reading interventions that extend beyond the reading of sight words
to include phonological awareness and phonics instruction. Even early proponents of
sight-word approaches have suggested that reading instruction needs to include
additional components if higher levels of reading are to be attained (Buckley, Bird, &
Byrne, 1996).
Evidence-based programs hold some promise for children with DS and ID. However,
as our results indicate, the programs may need to be modified in important ways for
meaningful improvements to be seen. There are several areas in which potential
modifications could enhance the effectiveness of the interventions for children with
DS and ID. First, due to the relatively low rates of retention for learned items, an
additional focus on review and practice may be needed. Second, increasing the
amount of time students spend applying newly acquired reading skills with novel
words and reading connected text will likely increase generalization (p. 88).
Lemons, C. J., Mrachko, A. A., Kostewicz, D. E., & Paterra, M. F. (2012).
Effectiveness of decoding and phonological awareness interventions for children with
Down Syndrome. Exceptional Children, 79(1), 67-90.

Little is known about the relationships between phonological processing, language,


and reading in children with intellectual disability (ID). We examined the structure of
phonological processing in 294 school-age children with mild ID and the
relationships between its components and expressive and receptive language and
reading skills using structural equation modeling. Phonological processing consisted
of two distinct but correlated latent abilities: phonological awareness and naming
speed. Phonological awareness had strong relationships with expressive and
receptive language and reading skills. Naming speed had moderate relationships
with these variables. Results suggest that children with ID bring the same skills to
the task of learning to read as children with typical development, highlighting the fact
that phonologically based reading instruction should be considered a viable
approach (p.365).
Barker, R. M., Sevcik, R. A., Morris, R. D., & Romski, M. (2013). A model of
phonological processing, language, and reading for students with mild intellectual
disability. American Journal on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, 118(5),
365-80

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