The purpose of this research study is to examine the emergent literacy of seven special needs youngsters who are included in a regular classroom. The special needs of these children, according to school authorities, ranges from autism, Down's syndrome and fragile x syndrome to severe language and intellectual impairment. There are few studies which address the emergent literacy of these special needs children. If special educators and regular teachers are to provide appropriate literacy instruction for these children, it is essential to investigate the ways these youngsters experience, participate in, use, and understand literacy. This dissertation responds to that need through a field-based qualitative study. The research design is that of an in-depth case study, with the researcher acting as the prime instrument of data collection and analysis. The case study has an ethnographic orientation and is interpretive in nature. The qualitative approach to data collection and analysis ensured thick, comprehensive descriptions and explanations using a systematic series of phases to investigate the seven youngsters' experiences with literacy in multiple contexts (school and home). Gathered over 44 weeks, the types of data collected, include audio recordings of focused interviews with the parents, teachers, teaching assistants, principals, and any others relevant to the child's instruction, as well as videotaped classroom observations, observational notes, focused literacy tasks developed from An Observation Survey (Marie Clay, 1993) and Literacy Tasks (J. Harste, V. Woodward & C. Burke, 1984), notes from school records and documents, artifacts of the children's written products from home and school. The data was analysed across the seven youngsters and described from the perspective of four themes: Beliefs/Values: about literacy, about inclusion; Experiences with and Participation in literacy; Characteristic uses of literacy at home and at school; Uses of literacy and language. The findings from this special needs population indicated that the home literacy settings of all these youngsters were highly convergent while the classroom settings were divergent. The parents' and educators' beliefs/values about inclusion and literacy played an important role in each child's literacy achievements. Despite the differences in their special needs, as evident in their written products, the children were similar in their use of literacy and their understanding of literacy concepts. The results of the study of this special needs population bear a remarkable similarity to the emergent literacy findings of researchers who have examined non special needs populations. Verbal proficiency among this special needs population did not appear to be a necessary prerequisite for them to demonstrate differing uses of literacy.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/8715 |
| Date | January 1999 |
| Creators | Berry, Dean B. |
| Contributors | Masny, Diana, |
| Publisher | University of Ottawa (Canada) |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 389 p. |
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