Writing development of students with intellectual disabilities via a computer-based teaching program

Abstract

The use of technological resources for teaching reading and writing based on principles of Behavior Analysis has been shown to be efficient and effective with different audiences. The present study evaluated the writing acquisition of two students with intellectual disabilities using Module 1 of the computerized curriculum Learning to Read and Write in Small Steps (ALEPP). This Module teaches regular, consonant-vowel words (e.g., "cow") through tasks involving the relationship between the dictated word and the printed word, and letter-composition copying and dictation. The participants were 19 and 25 years old, were attending Youth and Adult Education and had initial repertoire of reading regular words, above 70% of correct answers, but low performance in writing by dictation, ranging between 6.7% and 60% of correct answers. After teaching, an increase was observed in the writing repertoire of both participants, with 93.3% and 100% correct answers. The maintenance evaluation was performed with André after one month and with Ana after five months from the end of the Module. The participants maintained their high performances (greater than 80% correct answers). In an analysis of errors in dictated writing, there was an initial higher occurrence of letter substitution and syllabic writing. After teaching, the errors were based on letter substitution and letter omission. The teaching program proved to be effective for acquisition of simple word writing for young people with intellectual disabilities. Future studies should expand the number of participants and verify the generalization of the repertoire to the classroom.