Efficacy of a reading and language intervention for children with Down syndrome - Research Paper Example

Efficacy of a reading and language intervention for children with Down syndrome Introduction This paper seeks to summarize the research done and written by Burgoyne et. al., 2012. In their article, the authors talk about the evaluation of effects of a language intervention in children with Down syndrome. In addition, it contains the research questions that were used to guide the study the methods that were employed in the study as well as available literature about the topic. It further goes on to analyze the study sample as well as research findings in details. Research Questions The authors are guided by research questions in carrying out this research. The paper sought to answer the following questions. Are language impairments common among students with Down syndrome? This question helped the research by analyzing the statistics available about learning difficulties faced by children with Down syndrome in various places. The second question was ‘Does reading and language intervention have a positive impact on children with Down syndrome?’ This question guided the research in analyzing the impacts of reading and language interventions in children with Down syndrome, which further helped in assessing the efficacy of the study. The last research question in this study was ‘What are the factors that affect the response to the intervention in developing children with Down syndrome?’ From this question, the study elaborated the factors, whether intrinsic or extrinsic that affects the efficacy of this research (Burgoyne et. al., 2012). Literature Review summary There exist a number of publications about children with Down syndrome as illustrated in this article (Burgoyne et. al., 2012). Most researchers have found out that children with Down syndrome have a learning difficulty, but they can still read despite having varied attainment levels. Such authors include Byrne et al (2002) in their article where they did a comparative study of children with Down syndrome and their mainstream peer. Also reviewed here is a publication by Laws & Gunn, 2002, in their article where they analyzed the relationships between reading, phonological skills and language development in individuals with Down syndrome. After this five-year study, they came up with the same conclusion as Byrne et al. The article also reviews other study interventions put forth for children with Down syndrome. An example is the use of phonics for teaching and reading as elaborated by DCSF (2009), NRP (2000), and Rose (2007). It also highlights the debates that have arisen over the effectiveness of this method. From these publications, features of children with DS are also discussed. For instance, their good visual ability, their stronger ability to recognize words than decode them, as well as their weaknesses in phonological awareness is analyzed. It has also been documented that children with DS have benefited when subjected to reading instructions that compile both phonological awareness as well as reading skills. Cologon et. al. (2011), Goetz et al (2008), and Lemons and Fuchs (2010) documented this. However, they also highlighted that short training hours, small samples of study, and no comparison groups available that are appropriate undermine evidences proving this fact. The fact that language impairment is common among children with DS provided the rationale through which the intervention was conducted. This is according to Abbeduto et. al. (2007), where the authors analyzed language development in children with DS step by step from pre linguistic period till they acquired literacy in terms of language. This article also reviews the other interventions put forth in improving learning skills in children with Down syndrome. An example is the Triangle model as documented by Seidenberg and McClelland, 1989. This triangle model was mainly for recognition of words, and enabled the children to link orthography with word meanings by making use of semantic pathway. Also elaborated are the factors that influence children’s responses to this intervention (Burgoyne et. al., 2012). One such factor, as mentioned by Vadasy et. al., 2008, is the oral language skills of these children. This they discovered when studying the effects of supplemental early reading intervention that had a two year follow up. Whiteley et. al., 2007, also documented the same finding after they studied the factors that, after a phonologically based intervention, predicted recovery from risk. Other factors, as mentioned by Nelson et al, 2003, include phonological awareness, behavior, demographics, memory IQ, rapid naming, and alphabetic knowledge. This article also analyzes the extrinsic factors involved in this intervention publicized by Al Otaiba and Fuchs (2002), as well as the National Reading Panel, 2000. These include the length of instruction as well as the quality of the instructions. Due to the difficulties posed by children with DS in learning, an intervention combining vocabulary teaching and phonic based reading instruction was developed. This intervention was shown to support the reading development in developing children who previously had poor response to other interventions. Duff et al., 2008, documented this after they evaluated an instruction for children with poor response to reading intervention. Intervention analyzed in the study This study mainly analyzes the outcomes of reading and language intervention in children with Down syndrome. This intervention combined both reading instructions that were phonic based and vocabulary teaching. This resulted from the fact that language barriers exist in children with DS. Because of this, most of these children would not develop phoneme awareness if enough attention were not paid. This intervention was developed after observations of weaknesses in the previous interventions (Burgoyne et. al., 2012). Examples of such interventions include phonics use in teaching of reading, and use of the triangle model of reading. The shortcomings of these models called for reading and language intervention. Study participants and setting The study setting occurred in Yorkshire, north, and Hampshire, south in the United Kingdom. The study sample was obtained through advertisement that targeted parents, students with Down syndrome and educators of these children. Fifty-eight children were identified to participate, together with a teaching assistant (Burgoyne et. al., 2012). Out of these, fifty-seven children participated in the study, twenty- eight being boys. The children were all in primary school, aged between 1-5 years old. This age was appropriate so that they would provide a study sample for the whole study period while still in primary school. Thirty-two of the children were from Yorkshire while the remaining twenty-seven were from Hampshire. They were randomly allocated to either the intervention or the waiting control groups. Findings From the study, it was observed that the children subjected to interventions were positively impacted on compared to their waiting counterparts. These observations were made in four various aspects of the study. The first one was their knowledge in letter-sound, followed by their reading of a single word. Their knowledge in taught expressive vocabulary and phoneme blending areas were also observed (Burgoyne et. al., 2012). However, the intervention did not influence children’s ability on spelling and non-word readings as well as information, grammar and vocabulary. The study also found out that growth in reading was affected by factors like age, where younger children gained more compared to older ones. The effectiveness of teaching assistant and attendances also influenced the growth of the children in terms of reading. Gender of children and their behavior problems had no effect on growth in reading of students. Observed Reading Intervention I have observed a similar reading and learning intervention in my building. The procedure employed was a reading instruction followed by learning of vocabulary use with assistance from a TA. This intervention is done at an interval of two days every week. Conclusion It is clear from the above study that reading and language intervention was successful. This is because it created a lot of improvement in reading and language skills of children with Down syndrome (Burgoyne et. al., 2012). The greatest improvements were observed in skills that were taught directly as opposed to those not directly taught in the intervention. The intervention was teacher- assistant delivered. References Burgoyne K., Duff F., Clarke P., Buckley S., Snowling M., & Hulme C. (2012) Efficacy of a Reading and Language Intervention for Children with Down syndrome: A Randomized Controlled Trial Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 53:10 (2012), pp 1044–105. Read More