Despite the emphasis society places on literacy, most students with developmental disabilities remain illiterate. One cause for this illiteracy may be that these students lack foundational language skills that contribute to being able to read. Research has shown that, among other contributions, multiple exposures across time increase students' abilities to acquire knowledge. The Symple Readers integrated curriculum plans for multiple exposures to novel picture vocabulary words by building them into all activities across the students' day and week. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of the Symple Readers integrated curriculum on expressive vocabulary development. During the six-week study, eight elementary students with developmental disabilities were given the opportunity to acquire 27 novel expressive vocabulary words. A multiple probe design across word sets was used to determine the effects of instruction on word acquisition. While individual results varied, the average expressive vocabulary gain was 72% of the novel words, showing a clear functional relationship between the Symple Readers integrated curriculum and the acquisition of the 27 novel expressive vocabulary words.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BGMYU2/oai:scholarsarchive.byu.edu:etd-4607 |
| Date | 12 June 2013 |
| Creators | Edvalson, Loralene |
| Publisher | BYU ScholarsArchive |
| Source Sets | Brigham Young University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | http://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/ |
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