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LEARNING DISABILITY : A CASE STUDY

The present investigation was carried out on a girl name Harshita who has been identified with learning disability. She is presently studying at ‘Udaan’ a school for the special children in Shimla. The girl was brought to this special school from the normal school where she was studying earlier when the teachers and parents found it difficult to teach the child with other normal children. The learning disability the child faces is in executive functioning i.e. she forgets what she has memorized. When I met her I was taken away by her sweet and innocent ways. She is attentive and responsible but the only problem is that she forgets within minutes of having learnt something. Key words : learning disability, executive functioning, remedial teaching

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The Child with Learning Difficulties and His Writing: A Study of Case

Submitted: 30 May 2019 Reviewed: 16 August 2019 Published: 20 November 2019

DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.89194

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The purpose of this paper is to present one child with learning difficulties writing process in multigrade rural elementary school in México. It presents Alejandro’s case. This boy lives in a rural area. He shows special educational needs about learning. He never had specialized attention because he lives in a marginalized rural area. He was integrated into regular school, but he faced some learning difficulties. He was always considered as a student who did not learn. He has coursed 2 years of preschool and 1 year of elementary school. Therefore, this text describes how child writes a list of words with and without image as support. Analysis consists to identify the child’s conceptualizations about writing, his ways of approaching, and difficulties or mistakes he makes. The results show that Alejandro identifies letters and number by using pseudo-letters and conventional letter. These letters are in an unconventional position. There is no relationship grapheme and phoneme yet, and he uses different writing rules. We consider his mistakes as indicators of the learning process.

writing difficulties
learning difficulties
writing learning
writing process
special education

Author Information

Edgardo domitilo gerardo morales *.

Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, National Autonomous University of Mexico, México City, México

*Address all correspondence to: [email protected]

1. Introduction

One of the purposes of Mexican education system is that students acquire conventional writing during first grades in elementary school [ 1 ]. This purpose consists of students to understand the alphabetical code, its meaning, and functionality. In this way, they can integrate into a discursive community.

The elementary school teacher teaches a heterogeneous group of children [ 1 , 2 ]. Some students show different acquisition levels of the writing. This is due to literacy environment that the family and society provide. Thus, some children have had great opportunities to interact with reading and writing practices than others. Therefore, some students do not learn the alphabetical principle of writing at the end of the scholar year. They show characteristics of initial or intermediate acquisition level of the writing. In this way, it is difficult for children to acquire writing at the same time, at the term indicated by educational system or teachers.

In addition, there may be children with learning difficulties in the classroom. Department of Special Education teaches some children. Students with special educational needs show more difficulties to learn than their classmates [ 3 ]. They require more resources to achieve the educational objectives. These authors point out that special educational needs are relative. These needs arise between students’ personal characteristics and their environment. Therefore, any child may have special educational needs, even if he/she does not have any physical disability. However, some students with learning difficulties do not have a complete assessment about their special educational needs. On the one hand, their school is far from urban areas; on the other hand, there are not enough teachers of special education for every school. In consequence, school teachers do not know their students’ educational needs and teach in the same way. Thereby, students with learning difficulties do not have the necessary support in the classroom.

Learning difficulties of writing may be identified easily. Children with special educational needs do not learn the alphabetical principle of writing easily; that is, they do not relate phoneme with grapheme. Therefore, children show their conceptualizations about writing in different ways. Sometimes, teachers censor their students’ written productions because they do not write in a conventional way. Children with special educational needs are stigmatized in the classroom. They are considered as less favored. At the end of the scholar year, children do not pass.

Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to present one child with special educational needs writing process in a Mexican multigrade rural school. This text describes how the child writes a list of words with and without image as support. Analysis consists to identify the child’s conceptualizations about writing [ 4 ], his ways of approaching, and difficulties or mistakes he makes. These mistakes are the indicators of learning process [ 5 ].

This paper presents Alejandro’s case. This boy lives in a rural area. He shows special educational needs about learning. He never had specialized attention because he lives in a marginalized rural area. He was integrated into regular school, but he faced some learning difficulties. He was always considered as a student who does not learn. Therefore, this text describes Alejandro’s writing, what he does after 2 years of preschool and 1 year of elementary school.

2. Children with learning difficulties and their diagnosis

According to the National Institute for the Evaluation of Education [ 6 ], Mexican education system provides basic education (preschool, elementary, and secondary school) for students with special educational needs. There are two types of special attention: Center of Multiple Attention (CAM, in Spanish) and Units of Service and Support to Regular Education (USAER, in Spanish). In the first one, children with special educational needs go to this Center. These children receive attention according to basic education and their educational needs. In the second, specialized teachers on special education go to school and provide support to students. These teachers provide information to school teachers too. In this way, there is educational equity and inclusion in Mexican school [ 7 ].

Physical appearance : Teacher describes the child’s physical characteristics. These features indicate the type of food the student eats, care his or her person, the parents’ attention, among other elements.

Behavior observed during the assessment : In this section, the teacher should record the conditions in which the assessment was carried out: child’s attitude, behavior, and interest.

Child’s development history : This section presents conditions in which pregnancy developed, physical development (ages in which child held his/her head, sat, crawled, walked, etc.), language development (verbal response to sounds and voices, age in which said his/her first words and phrases, etc.), family (characteristics of their family and social environment, frequent activities, etc.), hetero-family history (vision, hearing, etc.), medical history (health conditions, diseases, etc.), and scholar history (age at which he/she started school, type of school, difficulties, etc.).

Present condition : In this, there are four aspects:

It refers to student’s general aspects: intellectual area (information processing, attention, memory, understanding, etc.), motor development area (functional skills to move, take objects, position of his/her body, etc.), communicative-linguistic area (phonological, semantic, syntactic and pragmatic levels), adaptation and social interaction area (the child’s skills to initiate or maintain relationships with others), and emotional area (the way of perceiving the world and people). In each one, it mentions the instruments he suggests, although there is not enough information about them [ 3 ].

The second aspect is the curricular competence level. Teacher identifies what the student is capable of doing in relation to established purposes and contents by official curriculum.

The third aspect is about the learning style and motivation to learn. It presents physical-environmental conditions where the child works, their interests, level attention, strategies to solve a task, and the incentives he receives.

The fourth aspect is information about the student’s environment: factors of the school, family, and social context that influence the child’s learning.

Psycho-pedagogical assessment allows to identify children’s general educational needs. In this way, the school teacher could have information about the students’ difficulties. However, it is a general assessment. It contains several aspects and does not go deeper into one.

Therefore, this paper does not propose a new assessment. It consists of presenting one child’s writing difficulties, his ways of conceptualizing writing, and some mistakes he gets to make.

3. Students with learning difficulties and their scholar integration

Since 1993, Mexican system education has tried to offer special education services to students with special educational needs in basic education [ 8 ]. The first step was to promote the integration of these children in regular education classrooms. However, only insertion of the student in the school was achieved. Therefore, the system of education searched for mechanisms to provide advice to teacher. In this way, student with learning difficulties can be attended at the same time in the classroom [ 8 ].

Educational integration has been directly associated with attention of students with learning difficulties, with or without physical disabilities [ 8 ]. However, this process implies a change in the school. For this, it is necessary to provide information and to create awareness to the educational community, permanent updating of teachers, joint work between teacher, family, and specialized teachers.

At present, Mexican education system looks at educational integration as process in which every student with learning difficulties is supported individually [ 9 ]. Adapting the curriculum to the child is the purpose of educational integration.

Curricular adequacy is one of the actions to support students with learning difficulties [ 10 , 11 ]. This is an individualized curriculum proposal. Its purpose is to attend the students’ special educational needs [ 3 ]. At present, Mexican education system indicates that there should be a curricular flexibility to promote learning processes. However, it is important to consider what the child knows about particular knowledge.

Regarding the subject of the acquisition of written language, it is necessary to know how the children build their knowledge about written. It is not possible to make a curricular adequacy if teachers do not have enough information about their students. However, children are considered as knowledge builders. Therefore, there are learning difficulties at the process.

4. Alejandro’s case

This section presents Alejandro’s personal information. We met him when we visited to his school for other research purposes. We focused on him because the boy was silent in class. He was always in a corner of the work table and did not do the activities. For this, we talked with his teacher and his mother to know more about him.

Alejandro is a student of an elementary multigrade rural school. He was 7 years old at the time of the study. He was in the second grade of the elementary school. His school is located in the region of the “Great Mountains” of the state of Veracruz, Mexico. It is a rural area, marginalized. To get to this town from the municipal head, it is necessary to take a rural taxi for half an hour. Then, you have to walk on a dirt road for approximately 50 min.

Alejandro’s family is integrated by six people. He is the third of the four sons. He lives with his parents. His house is made of wood. His father works in the field: farming of corn, beans, and raising of sheep. His mother is a housewife and also works in the field. They have a low economic income. Therefore, they receive a scholarship. One of his older brothers also showed learning difficulties at school. His mother says both children have a learning problem. But, they do not have any money for attending their sons’ learning difficulties. In addition, there are no special institutes near their house.

The boy has always shown learning difficulties. He went to preschool for 2 years. However, he did not develop the necessary skills at this level. At classes, this child was silent, without speaking. Preschool teachers believed that he was mute. Nevertheless, at scholar recess, he talked with his classmates. Alejandro was slow to communicate with words in the classroom.

When he started elementary school, Alejandro continued to show learning difficulties. At classes, he was silent too. He just watched what his classmates did. He did not do anything in the class. He took his notebook out of his backpack and just made some lines. Occasionally, he talked with his classmates. When the teacher asked him something, Alejandro did not answer. He looked down and did not answer. He just ducked his head and stayed for several minutes.

When Alejandro was in second grade, he did different activities than his classmates. His teacher drew some drawings for him and he painted these drawings. Other occasions, the teacher wrote some letters for him to paint. The child did every exercise during several hours. He did not finish his exercises quickly. Sometimes he painted some drawings during 2 h.

Although Alejandro requires specialized attention, he has not received it. He has not had a full psycho-pedagogical assessment at school by specialized teachers. His school does not have these teachers. Also, the child was not submitted to neurological structural examination or neurophysiological studies to exclude an organic origin of his learning difficulties. His parents do not have enough financial resources to do this type of study for him. In addition, one specialized institution that can do this type of study for free is in Mexico City. It is so far from child’s house. It would be expensive for the child’s parents. Therefore, he is only attended as a regular school student.

For this reason, this paper is interested in the boy’s writing process. This is because Alejandro coursed 2 years of preschool and 1 year of elementary school; however, he does not show a conventional writing yet. In this way, it is interesting to analyze his conceptualizations about writing and difficulties he experiences.

5. Methodology

The purpose of this paper is to know the child’s ways to approach writing spontaneously and his knowledge about the writing system. For this, the author used a clinical interview. He took into account the research interview guide “Analysis of Disturbances in the Learning Process of Reading and Writing” [ 12 ].

The clinical interview was conducted individually. We explored four points, but we only present two in this text: to write words and to write for image.

Interviewer took the child to the library room at school. There were no other students. First, the interviewer gave the child a sheet and asked to write his name. Alejandro wrote his name during long time. Interviewer only asked what it says there. He answered his name: “Alejandro.” Next, the interviewer asked the child to write some letters and numbers he knew. Alejandro wrote them. The interviewer asked about every letter and number. The child answered “letter” or “number,” and its name.

To write words : The interviewer asked the child to write a group of words from the same semantic field in Spanish (because Alejandro is from Mexico) and one sentence. Order of words was from highest to lowest number of syllables. In this case, interviewer used semantic field of animals. Therefore, he used following words: GATO (cat), MARIPOSA (butterfly), CABALLO (horse), PERRO (dog), and PEZ (fish). The sentence was: EL GATO BEBE LECHE (The cat drinks milk). The interviewer questioned every written word. He asked the child to show with his finger how he says in every written production.

To write for image : This task was divided into two parts. The first analyzed the size and second analyzed the number.

Interviewer used the following image cards: horse-bird and giraffe-worm ( Figure 1 ). Every pair of cards represents a large animal and a small animal.

Cards with large and small animals.

The purpose of this first task was to explore how the child writes when he looks at two images of animals with different size. The animal names have three syllables in Spanish: CA-BA-LLO (horse), PA-JA-RO (bird), etc. In this way, we can see how the child writes.

The interviewer used the following pair of cards for second task ( Figure 2 ).

Cards for singular and plural.

First card shows one animal (singular) and the second shows some animals (plural). In this way, we search to explore how the child produces his writings when he observes one or more objects, if there are similarities or differences to write.

The interviewer asked what was in every card. Next, he asked the child to write something. Alejandro wrote something in every picture. Afterward, the interviewer asked the child to read every word that he wrote. Child pointed with his finger what he wrote.

After, the interview was transcribed for analysis. We read the transcription. The author analyzed every written production. He identified the child’s conceptualizations about writing. He compared the written production and what the child said. In this way, the analysis did not only consist to identify the level of writing development. This text describes the child’s writing, the ways in which he conceptualizes the writing, the difficulties he experienced to write, and his interpretations about writing.

6. Alejandro’s writing

This section describes Alejandro’s writing process. As we already mentioned, Alejandro is 7 years old and he studies in the second grade of the elementary school. His teacher says the child should have a conventional writing, because he has already coursed 1 year of elementary school, but it is not like that. Most of his classmates write a conventional way, but he does not.

We organized this section in three parts. The first part presents how Alejandro wrote his name and how he identifies letters and numbers; the second part refers to the writing of words; and the third part is writing for picture.

6.1 Alejandro writes his name and some letters and numbers

The first part of the task consisted of Alejandro writing his name and some letters and numbers he knows. His name was requested for two reasons. The first reason is to identify the sheet, because the interviewer interviewed other children in the same school. Also, it was necessary to identify every written productions of the group of students. The second reason was to observe the way he wrote his name and how he identified letters and numbers.

The interviewer asked the child to write his name at the top of the sheet. When the interviewer said the instructions, Alejandro was thoughtful during a long time. He was not pressed or interrupted. He did not do anything for several seconds. The child looked at the sheet and looked at everywhere. After time, he took the pencil and wrote the following on the sheet ( Figure 3 ).

Alejandro’s name.

The interviewer looked at Alejandro’s writing. He asked if something was lacking. The interviewer was sure that Alejandro knew his name and his writing was not complete. However, Alejandro was thoughtful, and looked at the sheet for a long time. The interviewer asked if his name was already complete. The child answered “no.” The interviewer asked the child if he remembered his name. Alejandro denied with his head. So, they continued with another task.

Alejandro has built the notion of his name. We believe that he has had some opportunities to write his name. Perhaps, his teacher has asked him to write his name on his notebooks, as part of scholar work in the classroom. We observed that Alejandro used letters with conventional sound value. This is because he wrote three initial letters of his name: ALJ (Alejandro). The first two letters correspond to the beginning of his name. Then, he omits “E” (ALE-), and writes “J” (ALJ). However, Alejandro mentions that he does not remember the others. This may show that he has memorized his name, but at that moment he failed to remember the others, or, these letters are what he remembers.

Subsequently, the interviewer asked Alejandro to write some letters and numbers he knew. The sequence was: a letter, a number, a letter, another letter, and number. In every Alejandro’ writing, the interviewer asked the child what he wrote. In this way, Alejandro wrote the following ( Figure 4 ).

Letters and numbers written by Alejandro.

For this task, Alejandro wrote for a long time. He did not hurry to write. He looked at sheet and wrote. The child looked at the interviewer, looked at the sheet again and after a few seconds he wrote. The interviewer asked about every letter or number.

We can observe that Alejandro differentiates between letter and number. He wrote correctly in every indication. That is, when the interviewer asked him to write a letter or number, he did so, respectively. In this way, Alejandro knows what he needs to write a word and what is not, what is for reading and what is not.

Also, we can observe that the child shows a limited repertoire of letters. He did not write consonants. He used only vowels: A (capital and lower) and E (lower). It shows us that he differentiates between capital and lower letter. Also, he identifies what vowels and letters are because the child answered which they were when the interviewer asked about them.

6.2 Writing words from the same semantic field

Asking the child to write words spontaneously is a way to know what he knows or has built about the writing system [ 12 ]. Although we know Alejandro presents learning difficulties and has not consolidated a conventional writing, it is necessary to ask him to write some words. This is for observing and analyzing what he is capable of writing, what knowledge he has built, as well as the difficulties he experiences.

The next picture presents what Alejandro wrote ( Figure 5 ). We wrote the conventional form in Spanish next to every word. We wrote these words in English in the parentheses too.

List of words written by Alejandro.

At the beginning of the interview, Alejandro did not want to do the task. He was silent for several seconds. He did not write anything. He looked at the sheet and the window. The interviewer insisted several times and suspended the recording to encourage the child to write. Alejandro mentioned he could not write, because he did not know the letters and so he would not do it. However, the interviewer insisted him. After several minutes, Alejandro took the pencil and started to write.

Alejandro wrote every word for 1 or 2 min. He required more seconds or minutes sometimes. He looked at the sheet and his around. He was in silence and looking at the sheet other times. We identified that he needs time to write. This shows that he feels insecure and does not know something for writing. He feels insecure because he was afraid of being wrong and that he was punished by the interviewer for it. It may be that in class he is penalized when he makes a mistake. There is ignorance because he does not know some letters, and he has a low repertoire of the writing system. Thus, Alejandro needs to think about writing and look for representing it. Therefore, this is why the child needs more time to write.

We identified that the child does not establish a phoneme-grapheme relationship. He only shows with his finger from left to right when he read every word. He does not establish a relationship with the letters he used. In each word, there is no correspondence with the number of letters. The child also does not establish a constant because there is variation in number and variety of letters sometimes.

Alejandro used letters unrelated to the conventional writing of the words. For example, when he wrote GATO (cat), Alejandro used the following letters: inpnAS. It is possible to identify that no letter corresponds to the word. Perhaps, Alejandro wrote those letters because they are recognized or remembered by him.

Alejandro shows a limited repertoire of conventional letters. This is observed when he uses four vowels: A, E, I, O. The child used these vowels less frequently. There is one vowel in every word at least. When Alejandro wrote PEZ (fish), he used two vowels. We observed that he writes these vowels at the beginning or end of the word. However, we do not know why he places them that way. Maybe this is a differentiating principle by him.

There is qualitative and quantitative differentiation in Alejandro’s writing. That is, he did not write any words in the same way. All the words written by him are different. Every word has different number and variety of letters. When two words contain the same number of letter, they contain different letters.

When Alejandro wrote MARIPOSA (butterfly), he used five letters. The number of letters is less than what he used for GATO (cat). Maybe he wrote that because the interviewer said “butterfly is a small animal.” This is because the cat is bigger than the butterfly. Therefore, it may be possible that he used lesser letters for butterfly.

In Spanish, PERRO (dog) contains five letters. Alejandro wrote five letters. In this case, Alejandro’s writing corresponds to the necessary number of letters. However, it seems that there is no writing rules for him. This is for two reasons: first, because there is no correspondence with the animal size. Horse is larger than dog and Alejandro required lesser letters for horse than for dog. Second, CABALLO (horse) is composed by three syllables and PERRO (dog) by two. Alejandro used more letters to represent two syllables. In addition, it is observed that there is a pseudo-letter. It looks like an inverted F, as well as D and B, horizontally.

When Alejandro wrote PEZ (fish), the interviewer first asked how many letters he needed to write that word. The child did not answer. Interviewer asked for this again and student said that he did not know. Then, interviewer said to write PEZ (fish). For several minutes, Alejandro just looked the sheet and did not say anything. The interviewer questioned several times, but he did not answer. After several minutes, Alejandro wrote: E. The interviewer asked the child if he has finished. He denied with his head. After 1 min, he started to write. We observed that his writing contains six letters. Capital letters are predominated.

Alejandro used inverted letters in three words. They may be considered as pseudo-letters. However, if we observe carefully they are similar to conventional letters. The child has written them in different positions: inverted.

May be there is a writing rule by Alejandro. His words have a minimum of four letters and a maximum of six letters. This rule has been established by him. There is no relation to the length of orality or the object it represents.

We can identify that Alejandro shows a primitive writing [ 4 ]. He is still in writing system learning process. The phoneticization process is not present yet. The child has not achieved this level yet. He only uses letters without a conventional sound value. There is no correspondence to phoneme-grapheme, and he uses pseudo-letters sometimes.

6.3 To write for image

Write for image allows us to know what happens when the child writes something in front of an image [ 12 ]. It is identified if there is the same rules used by the child, number of letters, or if there is any change when he writes a new word. It may happen that the length of the words is related to the size of the image or the number of objects presented. In this way, we can identify the child’s knowledge and difficulties when he writes some words.

6.3.1 The image size variable

The first task is about observing how the child writes when he is in front of two different sized images. That is, we want to identify if the image size influences on his writings. Therefore, two pairs of cards were presented to Alejandro. Every pair of cards contained two animals, one small and one large. The interviewer asked Alejandro to write the name on each one ( Figure 6 ).

Horse and bird writing.

Based on the writing produced by Alejandro, we mentioned the following:

Alejandro delimits his space to write. When he wrote for first pair of words, the child drew a wide rectangle and he made an oval and several squares for the second pair of words. The child wrote some letters to fill those drawn spaces. It seems that Alejandro’s rule is to fill the space and not only represent the word.

When Alejandro writes the words, we identified that he presents difficulty in the conventional directionality of writing. He wrote most of words from left to right (conventional directionality), but he wrote some words from right to left (no conventional). For example, the child started to write the second word on the left. He wrote seven letters. He looked at the sheet for some seconds. After, he continued to write other letters on the right. He wrote and completed the space he had left, from right to left.

Alejandro shows two ways to write: left–right (conventional) and right–left (no conventional). When he wrote the last word, the child wrote one letter under another. There was no limited space on the sheet. Alejandro wrote it there. The child has not learned the writing directionality.

When we compared Alejandro’s writings, we identified that the number of letters used by him does not correspond to the image size. Although the images were present and he looked them when he wrote, the child took into account other rules to write. The six names of animals had three syllables in Spanish and Alejandro used nine letters for CABALLO (horse) and eleven for PÁJARO (bird). The letters used by him are similar to the conventional ones. However, these are in different positions. There are no phonetic correspondences with the words. The child shows a primitive writing. Alejandro has not started the level of relation between phoneme and grapheme yet. We can believe that the boy wrote some letters to cover the space on the sheet. Alejandro takes into account the card size instead of the image size.

After writing a list of words, the interviewer asked Alejandro to read and point out every word he wrote. The purpose of this task is to observe how the child relates his writing to the sound length of the word. When Alejandro read CABALLO (horse), he pointed out as follows ( Figure 7 ).

Alejandro reads “caballo” (horse).

Alejandro reads every word and points out what he reads. In this way, he justifies what he has written. In the previous example, Alejandro reads the first syllable and points out the first letter, second syllable with the second letter. At this moment, he gets in conflict when he tries to read the third syllable. It would correspond to the third letter. However, “there are more letters than he needs.” When he reads the word, he shows the beginning of phoneticization: relation between one syllable with one letter. This is the syllabic writing principle [ 4 ]. Nevertheless, he has written more letters. Therefore, Alejandro says “o” in the other letters. In this way, we can point out that Alejandro justifies every letters and there is a correspondence between what he reads and what he writes.

When Alejandro reads the second word, the child pointed out as follows ( Figure 8 ).

Alejandro reads “pájaro” (bird).

Alejandro makes a different correspondence syllable-letter than the first word. Although his writing was in two ways, his reading is only one direction: from left to right. The first syllable is related to first three letters he wrote. The second syllable is related to the fourth letter. But, he faces the same problem as in the previous word: “there are many letters.” So he justifies the other letters as follows. He reads the third syllable in relation to the sixth and seventh letter. And, reads “o” for the other letters.

When interviewer showed the next pair of cards, Alejandro wrote as following ( Figure 9 ).

Giraffe and worm writing by Alejandro.

When the interviewer shows the pair of cards to Alejandro, the child said “It’s a zebra.” So, the interviewer said “It’s a giraffe and it’s a worm” and pointed out every card. The interviewer asked Alejandro to write the name of every animal. First, the child draws a rectangle across the width of the sheet. Next, he started to write on the left side inside the rectangle. He said the first syllable “JI” while writing the first letter. After, he said “ra,” he wrote a hyphen. Then, he said “e” and wrote another letter. At that moment, he looked at the sheet and filled the space he left with some letters ( Figure 10 ).

Giraffe writing.

Alejandro shows different rules of writing. These rules are not the same as previous. He delimited the space to write and filled the space with some letters. The child tries to relate the syllable with one letter, but he writes others. There is a limited repertoire of letters too. In this case, it seems that he used the same letters: C capital and lower letter, A capital and lower letter, and O. We believe that he uses hyphens to separate every letter. However, when he wrote the first hyphen, it reads the second syllable. We do not know why he reads there. Alejandro had tried to use conventional letters. He uses signs without sound value. In addition, there is no relation phoneme and grapheme.

When Alejandro wrote GUSANO (worm), he drew a rectangle and divided it into three small squares. Then, he drew other squares below the previous ones. After, he began to write some letters inside the squares, as seen in the following picture ( Figure 11 ).

Worm writing.

Alejandro used other rules to write. They are different than the previous. Alejandro has written one or two letters into every box. At the end, he writes some letters under the last box. There is no correspondence between what he reads and writes. There are also no fixed rules of writing for him. Rather, it is intuited that he draws the boxes to delimit his space to write.

6.3.2 Singular and plural writing

The next task consists to write singular and plural. For this, the interviewer showed Alejandro the following images ( Figure 12 ).

Cards with one cat and four cats.

Alejandro drew an oval for first card. This oval is on the left half of the sheet. He wrote the following ( Figure 13 ).

Alejandro writes GATO (cat).

Next, the interviewer asked Alejandro to write for the second card, in plural. For this, Alejandro draws another oval from the middle of the sheet, on the right side. The child did not do anything for 1 h 30 min. After this time, he wrote some different letters inside the oval ( Figure 14 ). He wrote from right to left (unconventional direction).

Alejandro writes GATOS (cats).

Alejandro wrote in the opposite conventional direction: from right to left. He tried to cover the delimited space by him. His letters are similar to the conventional ones. Also, there are differences between the first and the second word. He used lesser letters for first word than the second. That is, there are lesser letters for singular and more letters for plural. Perhaps, the child took into account the number of objects in the card.

The writing directionality may have been influenced by the image of the animals: cats look at the left side. Alejandro could have thought he was going to write from right to left, as well as images of the cards. Therefore, it is necessary to research how he writes when objects look at the right side. In this way, we can know if this influences the directionality of Alejandro’s writing.

With the next pair of images ( Figure 15 ), the interviewer asked Alejandro to write CONEJO (rabbit) and CONEJOS (rabbits).

Cards with one rabbit and three rabbits.

Alejandro draws a rectangle in the middle of the sheet for the first card (rabbit). He said “cone” (rab-) and wrote the first letter on the left of the sheet. Then, he said “jo” (bit) and wrote the second letter. He said “jo” again and wrote the third letter. He was thoughtful for some seconds. He started to write other letters. His writing is as follows ( Figure 16 ).

Alejandro writes CONEJO (rabbit).

At the beginning, Alejandro tries to relate the syllables of the word with first two letters. However, he justifies the other letters when he read the word. There is no exact correspondence between the syllable and the letter. As well as his writing is to fill the space he delimited.

Alejandro takes into account other rules for plural writing. He drew a rectangle across the width of the sheet. Starting on the left, he said “CO” and wrote one letter. Then, he said “NE” and drew a vertical line. After, he said “JO” and wrote other letters. His writing is as follows ( Figure 17 ).

Alejandro writes CONEJOS (rabbits).

Alejandro writes both words differently. He reads CONEJO (rabbit) for first word and CONEJOS (rabbits) for the second. Both words are different from each other. But, he wrote them with different rules. This is confusing for us because there are vertical lines between every two letters in the second word. We believe that the child tried to represent every object, although he did not explain it.

In summary, Alejandro shows different writings. He used pseudo-letters and conventional letter. These letters are in unconventional positions. There is no relationship between grapheme and phoneme yet; and, he uses different writing rules.

7. Conclusions

We described Alejandro’s writing process. According to this description, we can note the following:

Alejandro is a student of an elementary regular school. He presents learning difficulties. He could not write “correctly.” However, he did not have a full assessment by specialized teachers. His school is so far from urban areas and his parents could not take him to a special institution. Therefore, he has not received special support. Also, there is not a favorable literacy environment in his home. His teacher teaches him like his classmates. Usually, he has been marginalized and stigmatized because “he does not know or work in class.”

We focused on Alejandro because he was a child who was always distracted in class. We did not want to show his writing mistakes as negative aspects, but as part of his learning process. Errors are indicators of a process [ 5 ]. They inform the person’s skills. They allow to identify the knowledge that is being used [ 13 ]. In this way, errors can be considered as elements with a didactic value.

Alejandro showed some knowledge and also some difficulties to write. The child identifies and distinguishes letters and numbers. We do not know if he conceptualizes their use in every one. When he wrote, he shows his knowledge: letters are for reading, because he did not use any number in the words.

The writing directionality is a difficulty for Alejandro. He writes from left to right and also from right to left. We do not know why he did that. We did not research his reasons. But, it is important to know if there are any factors that influence the child to write like this.

The student does not establish a phoneme-grapheme relationship yet. He is still in an initial level to writing acquisition. He uses conventional letters and pseudo-letters to write. There are no fixed rules to write: number and variety of letters. However, we observed student’s thought about writing. He justifies his writings when he reads them and invents letters to represent some words.

There is still a limited repertoire of letters. He used a few letters of the alphabet. Therefore, Alejandro needs to interact with different texts, rather than teaching him letter by letter. Even if “he does not know those letters.” In this way, he is going to appropriate other elements and resources of the writing system.

Time he takes to write is an important element for us. He refused to write for several minutes at the beginning. After, he wrote during 1 or 2 min every word. As we mentioned previously, we believe that Alejandro did not feel sure to do the task. Perhaps, he thought that the interviewer is going to penalize for his writing “incorrectly.” He felt unable to write. Therefore, it is important that children’s mistakes are not censored in the classroom. Mistakes let us to know the child’s knowledge and their learning needs.

We considered that class work was not favorable for Alejandro. He painted letters, drawings, among others. These were to keep him busy. Therefore, it is important for the child to participate in reading and writing practices. In this way, he can be integrated into the scholar activities and is not segregated by his classmates.

About children with learning difficulties, it is important that these children write as they believe. Do not censor their writings. They are not considered as people incapable. It is necessary to consider that learning is a slow process. Those children will require more time than their classmates.

Special education plays an important role in Mexico. However, rather than attending to the student with learning difficulties in isolation, it is necessary that the teacher should be provided with information and the presence of specialized teachers in the classroom. In this way, the student with learning difficulties can be integrated into class, scholar activities, and reading and writing practices.

We presented Alejandro’s writing process in this paper. Although he was considered as a child with learning difficulties, we identified he shows some difficulties, but he knows some elements of the writing system too.

Acknowledgments

I thank Alejandro, his parents, and his teacher for the information they provided to me about him.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Case studies comparing learning profiles and response to instruction in Autism Spectrum Disorder and Oral and Written Language Learning Disability at transition to high school

Matthew c zajic , phd, michael dunn , phd, virginia w berninger , phd.

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Corresponding Author: Matthew C. Zajic, [email protected]

Literacy learning draws on aural language by ear, oral language by mouth, reading visible language by eye, and writing language by hand by pen, pencil, or computer tool ( Berninger, 2000 ). Yet the importance of including writing instruction for language by hand is often ignored or neglected at a time in education when the importance of reading has been emphasized even though writing is equally important ( National Commission on Writing for America’s Families, Schools, and Colleges, 2003 ). Moreover, research has shown the benefits of teaching in a manner that integrates language by ear, mouth, eye, and hand and aims at all levels of language of increasing size (subword→word→syntax→text) within each of these language systems close in time (see Berninger, 2015 ). Thus, the purpose of the research described in this article was to investigate literacy learning in students with specific kinds of language challenges at a specific stage of schooling—transition to high school—when the language requirements of the curriculum can be especially challenging. For this exploratory research, a case study approach was adopted that compared two adolescent boys both with language learning problems but with two contrasting disabilities—autism spectrum disorder (ASD) versus oral and written language learning disability (OWL LD)—just before entry to 9 th grade. To begin, the language learning issues associated with each of these disabilities are explained. Then, the research aims are described within the language learning framework for multiple, multi-leveled language systems that also interact with other domains of development—cognitive, social emotional, sensorimotor, and attention/executive functions.

Autism Spectrum Disorder

ASD is a neurodevelopmental disability where individuals demonstrate specific difficulties with social communication and social interactions along with presenting restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities ( American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2013 ). ASD affects approximately one in 59 eight-year-old children, with an estimated majority (69%) of these children demonstrating below average to above average cognitive abilities without the presence of a co-occurring intellectual disability ( Baio et al., 2018 ). Research has shown that various associated characteristics of ASD may impact academic learning, including variations in social (e.g., social communication and social cognition), cognitive (e.g., executive functions and detail-focused processing), memory, and linguistic (e.g., semantics and pragmatics) abilities ( Bauminger-Zviely, 2013 , 2014 ; Fleury et al., 2014 ; Keen, Webster, & Ridley, 2015 ; Kim, Paul, Tager-Flusberg, & Lord, 2014 ; Mundy & Mastergeorge, 2012 ; Simpson & Myles, 2016 ; Whitby & Mancil, 2009 ). Children with ASD demonstrate persistent academic challenges ( Bauminger-Zviely, 2013 , 2014 ; Mundy & Mastergeorge, 2012 ) and represent a substantial percentage (9%) of children receiving school services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in the United States ( McFarland et al., 2018 ).

Language by hand poses special challenges for students with ASD, especially for the transcription and translation processes of writing ( Finnegan & Accardo, 2018 ; Kushki, Chau, & Anagnostou, 2011 ). Transcription difficulties interfere with turning the language representations in the mind into written letters and words, often due to fine motor control and visual-motor integration that affect handwriting legibility and speed ( Church et al., 2000 ; Coffin, Myles, Rogers, & Szakacs, 2016 ; Kushki et al., 2011 ; Mayes, Breaux, Calhoun, & Frye, 2017 ). Translation difficulties interfere with transforming cognitions into language representations in the mind that in turn impact text quality, complexity, and organization ( Fayol, Alamargot, & Berninger, 2012 ); such problems in translation have been associated with problems in cognition, social communication, language, and attention ( Brown et al., 2014 ; Dockrell et al., 2014 ; Mayes & Calhoun, 2003 , 2007 , 2008 ; Zajic et al., 2018 ). However, other multifaceted challenges may underlie the writing difficulties of students with ASD, and research is needed to identify these.

Not only assessment research but also instructional intervention research may be informative in this regard. Evidence-based practices (EBPs) for academic interventions have emerged within the last decade specifically for children with ASD ( Bauminger-Zviely, 2013 , National Autism Center, 2015 ; Wong et al., 2015 ), but EBPs for writing for this population do not exist. Instead, research has suggested drawing from effective writing practices like explicit instruction, technology-aided instruction, self-management, visual supports, and peer-mediated instruction ( Asaro-Saddler, 2015 , 2016 ; Pennington & Delano, 2012 ). However, more research is needed on how best to meet the diverse writing challenges experienced by individuals with ASD.

Specific Learning Disabilities

Epidemiological studies have shown that specific learning disabilities (SLDs) related to language affect approximately one in five school-age children ( Katusic, Colligan, Weaver, & Barbaresi, 2009 ), but not all these SLDs are the same ( Berninger & Wolf, 2016 ; Silliman & Berninger, 2011 ) as the following examples show. Dysgraphia (impaired subword letter production) interferes with accuracy and/or rate of letter writing, which can in turn interfere with spelling and composing achievement. Dyslexia (impaired word reading and spelling) interferes with learning to decode (pronounce) unfamiliar words, identify familiar real words automatically, and encode (turn heard words into written words). Oral and written language (OWL) LD (impaired listening comprehension, oral expression, reading comprehension, and/or written expression) is related to syntactic and morphological difficulties. So, the hallmark impairment for each of these three SLDs involving language is at a different level of language, and these impairments cascade in increasing unit size (subword→word→syntax→text; Berninger, Richards, & Abbott, 2015 ). However, although there are cases of pure dysgraphia, pure dyslexia, and pure OWL LD, some students with OWL LD may also have co-occurring dyslexia or dysgraphia, and some students with dyslexia may also have co-occurring dysgraphia. These SLDs affecting language learning at different levels of language occur in students who are otherwise typically developing in terms of cognition, social emotional functions, sensorimotor functions, and attention/executive functions ( Berninger, 2015 ; Berninger et al., 2015 ).

Research Aims of the Current Study

The first research aim is to compare a student with ASD (pseudonym Jack) with a student with OWL LD (pseudonym John) on their learning profiles across the four language systems and various levels of language within language systems as well as cognitive and executive functions. OWL LD is typically the most impaired of the SLDs involving language learning—not only are there hallmark impairments in syntax and text language skills but also often challenges with word-level reading and spelling skills. The aural and oral language problems appear during the preschool years and typically continue during the school years ( Silliman & Berninger, 2011 ). OWL LD is often confused with dyslexia, but not all reading problems are dyslexia, and OWL LD is often not identified and treated ( Arfé, Dockrell, & Berninger, 2014 ).

Of interest is whether ASD, which involves language as well as non-language impairments, is associated with a similar learning profile for language, cognition, executive functions and social skills as OWL LD, which is primarily a language impairment. For example, children with ASD or SLD often demonstrate similar problems on writing assessments ( Finnegan & Accardo, 2018 ), but the underlying mechanisms contributing to these writing problems in ASD or dysgraphia may differ for the transcription and translation processes of writing (e.g., Price, Lacey, Weaver, & Ogletree, 2017 ). Transcription difficulties in ASD have been found to be related to graphomotor difficulties ( Church et al., 2000 ; Coffin et al., 2016 ; Kushki et al., 2011 ; Mayes et al., 2017 ), whereas transcription difficulties in dysgraphia are related to orthographic coding (storing and processing letter forms in memory) and executive function as well as graphomotor processes (for reviews, see Berninger, 2015 ; Silliman & Berninger, 2011 ). Research is needed on whether transcription difficulties in OWL LD are also related to orthographic processes such as the orthographic loop that integrates orthographic codes with graphomotor output and to executive functions that manage the integration process. Translation difficulties are found in both ASD and SLD, but different skills have been shown to predict measures of translation in groups with these contrasting disorders (e.g., ASD symptomatology in children with ASD and working memory and spelling abilities in children with specific language impairment; Dockrell et al., 2014 ).

In contrast to prior research that examined the predictors of specific written language skills in students with ASD or a SLD, the current study examines the learning profiles of a student with ASD and a student with OWL LD to identify commonalities and differences between them in cognition, the four language systems, and executive functions. Mostly norm-referenced test scores were used for describing these profiles, but occasionally raw scores or z-scores based on researcher-developed tasks were used. Parent reports about developmental history prior to school and educational history were also considered for making these comparisons, as well as direct observation by the research team of the students’ social behaviors during assessment and instruction.

The second specific aim is to compare the student with ASD and the student with OWL LD on response to instruction. These students are matched on grade level after completing intervention (9 th grade at the transition to high school), gender (male), and handedness (right). Both students were Caucasian and came from middle class families. Of interest is how the component skills in the learning profiles may change in response to the same computerized instruction (either comparably or differently) for the students with contrasting kinds of disabilities involving language. The computerized instructional program teaches writing and reading skills at different levels of language close in time while also drawing on aural and oral language in the process. It has previously been shown to be effective in improving language learning of students with dysgraphia, dyslexia, and OWL LD (e.g., Niedo, Tanimoto, Thompson, Abbott, & Berninger, 2016 ; Tanimoto, Thompson, Berninger, Nagy, & Abbott, 2015 ). At issue is whether this intervention designed to teach language learning skills to students with SLDs (e.g., OWL LD) will result in comparable response to instruction for a student with ASD. Two kinds of response to instruction assessments are employed: (a) re-administration of psychoeducational assessments given at pretest again at posttest to assess changes in specific skills in the learning profile, and (b) writing samples composed by each student in six successive lessons (personal narratives).

The third specific aim is to compare response to instruction in writing based on changes in personal narratives over the first six lessons. Specific assessed changes across personal narratives included the percent of sentences relevant to topic at hand and the frequency of using previously taught strategies for writing the next sentence and creating text structures.

Developmental framework underlying the assessment and instruction.

Both assessment approaches and effective instructional practices for children with SLD may also be effective with children with ASD due to common concerns for both populations ( Aspy & Grossman, 2016 ; Price et al., 2017 ), as both groups can often experience heterogeneous challenges in non-language domains that further contribute to specific skill difficulties in varied language skills. For example, the nature and the extent of the various difficulties may vary between groups ( McKnight & Culotta, 2012 ; Taylor et al., 2014 ), particularly with regard to specific writing difficulties (for representative findings about the writing challenges of children with SLDs, see Arfé, Dockrell, & Berninger, 2014 ; MacArthur, Graham, & Fitzgerald, 2015 ; Swanson, Harris, & Graham, 2013 ). Ongoing research is needed to determine how to use effective instructional practices like those used for struggling writers, often with SLDs, with children with ASD (e.g., Asaro-Saddler, 2016 ).

To make the comparisons between ASD and OWL LD in the current study, a developmental framework was adopted based on the four language systems (aural language, oral language, reading, and writing) that function both alone and with each other as well as with cognitive, social-emotional, and attention/executive function processes in guiding language learning and in responding to literacy instruction ( Berninger, 2000 , 2015 ; Berninger, Garcia, & Abbott, 2009 ; James, Jao, & Berninger, 2015 ). Careful consideration of the overall learning profile with multiple language skills and related processes helps to pinpoint where individual strengths and weaknesses fall to inform appropriate instructional approaches ( Silliman & Berninger, 2011 ). The computerized instruction employed in the current study included learning activities that engaged the multiple language systems and were designed to also develop the related processes (see Method for further discussion).

Participants

Student with asd..

Jack was 15 years, 9 months when pretested before participating in the computerized instruction at the university during a summer program, after which he was posttested and entered the 9 th grade. While he completed the pretest assessment battery described later, his mother completed parent questionnaires regarding relevant background information about developmental, medical, and educational history. At age four, Jack was diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS) by an interdisciplinary team of medical professionals in the preschool he attended. During the school years, that diagnosis was revised to Asperger’s Syndrome. With the latest ASD diagnostic criteria revisions ( APA, 2013 ), Jack’s diagnosis falls under the broader ASD diagnostic category. He was receiving school services specifically for social skills at the time of the study. It is important to note that an ASD diagnosis rules out a diagnosis of OWL LD, which is diagnosed only in the absence of developmental disabilities. Jack has had a history of sensory problems, sleeping difficulties, and takes multiple medications. By parent report, he performs better at reading when he can follow along silently while someone else reads the material aloud to him; he cannot write or read cursive letters but has had prior typing instruction; and he has trouble with note taking at school. His mother also reported that he prefers to read encyclopedias and memorize information; he is particularly interested in fantasy and violence.

During the intervention sessions, the graduate teaching assistants who monitored students’ attention to and engagement in the computerized learning activities noted that Jack never interacted socially with any of the other students also participating in the intervention. This lack of social interaction with peers was in marked contrast to the students with SLDs who had to be reminded to focus on the learning activities and not to interact with the other students in the computer lab at the same time. Jack’s data were not included in any previously published research articles by the research team on the effectiveness of the computerized instruction for students with SLDs or analyses of diagnostic profiles.

Student with OWL LD.

John was 15 years, 6 months when pretested before participating in the computerized instruction at the university during a summer program, after which he was posttested and entered the 9 th grade. While he completed the diagnostic assessment battery, his mother completed parent questionnaires regarding relevant background information about developmental, medical, and educational history. Although John produced single words about the time of his first birthday, his multi-word constructions were delayed until about the time of his third birthday. His motor developmental milestones always were delayed by a few months during the preschool years. He enjoyed interacting with others but always preferred playing with younger children, possibly because he found it easier to interact with them verbally than same-age peers due to his language challenges. His mother reported that John takes multiple medications, and that he enjoys spending time outdoors, skateboarding, playing with neighborhood children, and going to school. John has always struggled with reading, writing, and math and has had an Individualized Education Plan since the 3 rd grade. An earlier assessment by a neuropsychologist reported diagnoses of ADHD, dyslexia, and dysgraphia, all of which were noted in the pretest assessment for the current study in addition to the OWL LD. The neuropsychologist probably did not diagnose OWL LD due to not assessing oral language or not reviewing preschool development history.

Assessment Battery

All measures in Table 1 were administered both at pretest and posttest (except for tests of cognition, which were only administered at pretest). The pretest measures were used to describe the overall profiles for cognition, aural and oral language, reading and writing, and executive functions prior to the computerized instruction. The changes from pretest to posttest on the measures given at both times were used to assess response to instruction. A change of at least one third standard deviation (five points for standard scores and one point for scaled scores) was noted as a probable indicator of improvement (see Tanimoto et al., 2015 ).

Psychoeducational Assessment Prior to Computerized Instruction for Multi-Level Integrated Reading-Writing for Student with Autism Spectrum Disorder (Jack) and with Oral and Written Language Learning Disability—Impaired Syntax (John). See Table Notes .

Note. The cognitive measures were administered only at pretest. Ranges indicate the band in which standard or scaled scores tend to occur across repeated testing and tend to be more reliable than standard or scaled scores. Ranges are interpreted as follows: Average = −2/3 standard deviation (SD) to upper limit just below + 2/3 SD; Low Average = −1 1/3 SD to upper limit just below −2/3 SD; Borderline = −2 SD to upper limit just below −1 1/3 SD; and Below Average = below −2 SD.

Participant demonstrated change from pretest to posttest on standard or scaled score of at least 1/3 of a SD (see article text for means and SDs) or marked improvement on raw scores. See text for further discussion.

Percentile Score;

Standard Score ( Mean = 100, SD = 15);

Scaled Score ( Mean = 10, SD = 3);

Assessment names are as follows: WJ-III COG = Woodcock Johnson, 3 rd Edition Tests of Cognitive Abilities. WISC-IV = Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, 4 th Edition. WJ-III ACH = Woodcock Johnson, 3 rd Edition Tests of Achievement. CELF-4 = Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals, 4 th Edition. DASH = Detailed Assessment of Speed of Handwriting. WIAT-III = Wechsler Individual Achievement Test, 3 rd Edition. TOC = Test of Orthographic Competence. TOWRE-2 = Test of Word Reading Efficiency, 2 nd Edition. D-KEFS = Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System. RAN = Rapid Automatized Naming. RAS = Rapid Alternating Stimulus.

NEPSY-II ( Korkman, Kirk, & Kemp, 2007 ): Theory of Mind.

Theory of Mind refers to how well individuals can understand that others may have perspectives different from their own. The verbal task, which is sensitive to the social aspects of communication, requires responding to questions about various scenarios to assess understanding of others’ perspectives. The contextual task requires identifying the represented affect of specific people. Publisher reported test-retest reliability is 0.58.

Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Cognitive Abilities (WJ-III COG; McGrew & Woodcock, 2001 ): Concept Formation and Analysis Synthesis.

The Concept Formation task assesses inductive reasoning (the ability to abstract concepts from examples of the concepts) via identifying the rule governing a set of colored geometric figures. The Analysis Synthesis task assesses deductive reasoning (the ability to apply a concept or a rule to solve a problem) via identifying the missing components of an incomplete logic puzzle. Publisher reported test-retest reliabilities are 0.77 and 0.83, respectively.

Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, 4 th Edition (WISC-IV; Wechsler, 2003 ): Similarities, Vocabulary, and Comprehension.

The Similarities task requires explaining orally how two items spoken by the examiner are alike. The Vocabulary task requires oral definitions of words spoken by the examiner. The Comprehension task requires orally responding to questions about the world we live in. Scores on the three subtests are combined to compute the Verbal Comprehension Index, an indicator of verbal intelligence. Publisher reported test-retest reliability for the Verbal Comprehension Index is 0.93–0.95.

Aural and oral language.

Woodcock-johnson iii tests of achievement (wj-iii ach; mcgrew & woodcock, 2001 ): oral comprehension and understanding directions..

The Oral Comprehension task is an aural cloze task that requires providing a word orally during a pause in unfolding heard text. The Understanding Directions task assesses how well an individual can understand and follow spoken directions. Publisher reported test-retest reliabilities are 0.88 and 0.83, respectively.

Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals, 4 th Edition (CELF-4; Semel, Wiig, & Secord, 2003 ): Formulated Sentences.

The Formulated Sentences task requires constructing oral sentences from three provided words. Publisher reported test-retest reliability is 0.62–0.71.

WJ-III ACH: Word Identification, Word Attack, and Passage Comprehension.

The Word Identification task requires pronunciation of single real written words on a list without context clues. The Word Attack task requires pronunciation of single written pseudowords (pronounceable words without meaning) on a list. The Passage Comprehension task requires orally supplying a missing word in a blank that fits the context of a current sentence and prior sentences in a written passage. Publisher reported test-retest reliabilities are 0.95, 0.71–0.83, and 0.85, respectively.

Test of Word Reading Efficiency, 2 nd Edition (TOWRE-2; Torgesen, Wagner, & Rashotte, 2012 ): Sight Word Efficiency and Phonemic Decoding Efficiency.

The Sight Word Efficiency task requires accurate pronunciation of as many printed real words on a list as possible within 45 seconds. The Phonemic Decoding Efficiency task requires accurate pronunciation of as many printed pseudowords on a list as possible within 45 seconds. Publisher reported test-retest reliabilities are 0.91 and 0.90, respectively.

Alphabet letter writing from memory (first 15 seconds).

This experimenter-designed measure requires individuals to produce lower case letters of the alphabet accurately and quickly in alphabetic order from memory ( Berninger, 2009 ), first by printing manuscript letters, then by printing cursive letters, and then by selecting keys on a keyboard. Three raw scores are generated for the number of correct letters within the first 15 seconds in alphabet writing from memory: printing manuscript letters, writing cursive letters, and selecting and pressing letters on a keyboard. The z-score for printing manuscript letters in alphabetic order from memory (legible letters in correct order in first 15 seconds) is used as an indicator of accuracy and automaticity of the orthographic loop (see executive functions; Berninger, 2009 ).

Detailed Assessment of Speed of Handwriting (DASH; Barnett, Henderson, Scheib, & Shulz, 2007 ): Copy Best and Copy Fast.

Both tasks require copying a sentence with all letters of the alphabet. For the Copy Best task, the instructions are to copy the sentence in one’s best handwriting. For the Copy Fast task, the instructions are to copy the sentence in one’s fastest handwriting. No test-retest reliability is reported, but inter-rater reliability is 0.99.

Wechsler Individual Achievement Test, 3 rd Edition (WIAT-III; Wechsler, 2009 ): Spelling and Sentence Combining.

The Spelling task requires individuals to handwrite the spelling of dictated real words an examiner pronounces alone, within the context of a sentence, and then alone again. The Sentence Combining task requires individuals to combine two provided written sentences into one written sentence that contains all ideas from both separate sentences. Publisher reported test-retest reliabilities are 0.92 and 0.88, respectively.

WJ-III ACH: Writing fluency.

The Writing Fluency task requires composing written sentences for sets of three provided words. All three words in a set are to be used to create the sentence without changing individual words in any way (e.g., tense, plurality). The time limit is seven minutes. Publisher reported test-retest reliability is 0.81.

Test of Orthographic Competence (TOC; Mather, Roberts, Hammill, & Allen, 2008 ): Word Choice and Word Scrambles.

The Word Choice task requires individuals to identify the correct spelling among choices for a real written word. The Word Scrambles task requires unscrambling letter order to create a correct real word spelling. Publisher reported test-retest reliability is 0.72–0.75 and 0.88–0.90, respectively.

Executive functions.

Delis-kaplan executive function system (d-kefs; delis, kaplan, & kramer, 2001 ): color word form inhibition..

The Color Word Form Inhibition task requires individuals to read aloud color words in black ink and then name the color of the ink in a written word which conflicts with the name of the color word (e.g., red ink for the color word green). It is a measure of selective attention for focusing on what is relevant and ignoring what is irrelevant. Publisher reported test-retest reliability is 0.62–0.76.

Rapid Automatized Naming of Letters (RAN) and Rapid Alternating Stimulus (RAS; Wolf & Denckla, 2005 ).

The Rapid Automatized Naming of Letters, which is timed, requires naming lower-case alphabet letters (not in alphabetic order) arranged in rows as accurately and as quickly as possible. It assesses the phonological loop of working memory. The Rapid Alternating Stimulus task, which is timed, requires naming alternating lower-case printed letters (not in alphabetic order) and numerals (not in counting order) arranged in rows as accurately and as quickly as possible. It assesses switching attention from naming one orthographic stimulus to naming another as is needed when reading and spelling. Reported publisher test-retest reliability is 0.90.

Alphabet letter writing from memory (first 15 seconds)–Printing Manuscript Letters.

Alphabet 15 is a measure of the orthographic loop of working memory and is assessed with a measure of rapid automatic letter writing or letter production ( Berninger, 2009 ). See alphabet letter writing from memory (first 15 seconds) in the writing measures for more information.

Computerized Instruction Aimed at Multiple Levels of Language Close in Time

This computerized intervention was based on two decades of interdisciplinary research findings related to human-teacher-delivered instruction grounded in the multi-leveled view of language and the view that reading and writing are separate skills that can be integrated. All activities required participants to engage with multimodal instructions (listening to the computer teacher and viewing visual stimuli often animated on the computer screen) on a provided iPad device. Participants completed a series of tasks guided by a computer teacher (through ear phones students heard instructional talk synchronized with aural and oral language cues and the visible language cues on monitor for learning activities) that prompted learning activities and provided feedback. Participants had to complete 18 daily sessions, each of which lasted approximately 2 to 2 1/2 hours; these were offered four times a week for six weeks, allowing some flexibility for summer schedules. Participants progressed through specific learning activities that targeted (a) subword-level handwriting (manuscript and cursive) and related processes, (b) word-level reading and spelling and related processes (grapheme-phoneme correspondences in reading direction and application to reading words; phoneme-grapheme correspondences in spelling direction and application to spelling words; word families; word-specific spellings; phonological, orthographic, and morphological awareness and integration of phonology, orthography, and morphology), (c) sentence-level comprehension and composing (word-order and function/content word learning activities), and (d) text-level strategies for composing the next sentence and for creating text organization followed by composing (first six sessions, personal narratives; last twelve sessions, writing notes and summaries based on source material that is read and source material that is heard). Participants proceeded at their own pace until most of the learning activities were completed, but a few of the learning activities (e.g., the text composing) had set time limits. Students received feedback for their performance on the screen for most learning activities and recorded the feedback on a personal growth graph reviewed with a teacher at the end of each session. All tasks were completed using a stylus for handwriting, a finger press for choosing/dragging elements for word and sentence learning activities, or a keyboard for typing.

Prior to the composing personal narratives or summaries, students were taught strategies for composing the very next sentence and creating unfolding discourse structure at the text level (for specific strategies taught at Level I for Thinking about Writing the Next Sentence and at Level II for Connecting Sentences Together, see Niedo et al., 2016 ). Taught strategies were based on strategies observed in the composing of typically developing writers (see Niedo & Berninger, 2016 ). Strategies were taught by asking participants to click on each one in order for an overview of constructing the very next sentence and connecting sentences together. Participants were then reminded at the beginning of each writing sample that they could access any of these strategies at any time during their composing by clicking a box on the computer screen to review it for applying to the text they were composing. If participants did not use the fully allotted time, they were encouraged to keep writing until time ran out. For further details about the content and nature of the learning activities, see Tanimoto et al. (2015) .

Composing Personal Narratives

In the current study, the focus is on analyzing the personal narratives across the first six sessions because of the personal and social emotional insights they may provide about writers who struggle with learning for contrasting reasons. The personal narratives that Jack and John composed are presented side by side in Table 2 for comparisons within a session and across sessions. The results for note and summaries for source material are not presented in this article for these reasons: (a) space limitations prohibits reproduction of source materials for interpreting compositions; and (b) the significant reading comprehension challenges and co-occurring ADHD diagnoses of both boys make it difficult to sort out whether challenges during summary writing were due to writing difficulties or other learning difficulties. Nevertheless, the changes in test scores in learning profiles from pretest to posttest reported in this article are based on the completion of both summary composing and personal narrative writing sessions. For more information on the notes and summaries composing, see Tanimoto et al. (2015) .

Personal Narratives Written by a Student with Autism Spectrum Disorder (Jack) and a Student with Oral and Written Language Learning Disability (John)

Participants received the following general instructions before each prompt for a specific kind of autobiographical writing in a given session (your life during school years; your life before starting school; your life after schooling is completed; your family; your country and world; or your interests). Note that affixes were called fixes, and participants were taught that fixes can change words so that they fit the grammar and meaning of a sentence.

“A writing strategy for story writing is to think with your inside voice. What you think, you ‘say’ silently with your inside voice and you can turn it into sounds, spelling, and base words with and without fixes. That is, you can turn your thoughts into written language!”

Then students were reminded that they could click on a link on the screen if they wanted to review strategies they had just practiced for writing the next sentence and for connecting sentences so that they could apply them to their own writing.

Research Aim 1: Learning Profiles Prior to Computerized Instruction

Table 1 provides scores from Jack and John on the psychoeducational assessment measures. Their overall performance is discussed in reference to their profiles of cognitive, aural/oral language, reading, writing, and executive function measures.

Cognitive profile.

Jack’s overall cognitive profile demonstrated variable abilities. However, because all but two of the cognitive skills fell in the normal range, a diagnosis of intellectual disability was not warranted. His verbal cognitive abilities fell in the low average range to average range. His nonverbal reasoning showed a dissociation between inductive reasoning (WISC-IV Concept Formation) in the average range and deductive reasoning (WISC-IV Analysis-Synthesis) in the below average range. Consistent with his ASD diagnosis, Jack scored outside the normal range (below average; 1 st to 3 rd percentile range) on NEPSY-II Theory of Mind, a measure sensitive to the social cognition challenges associated with ASD ( APA, 2013 ).

John demonstrated variable cognitive abilities, ranging from below average to average. Four of his seven cognitive abilities assessed were in the low average or average range. His verbal cognitive abilities spanned the borderline to low average ranges. For nonverbal abilities, he had a relative strength in deductive reasoning (average range) compared to inductive reasoning (low average range). John scored below average on NEPSY II Theory of Mind, which can be a noted area of difficulty for children with language learning difficulties ( Taylor, 2015 ).

Aural and oral language profile.

Jack showed a sizable dissociation between the two listening comprehension measures: WJ-III ACH Oral Comprehension was in the average range, but WJ-III ACH Understanding Directions was in the below average range. Likewise, his ability to express his ideas in oral language on the CELF-4 Formulated Sentences was in the borderline range.

John showed a relative strength on one of the two listening comprehension measures:

WJ-III ACH Oral Comprehension was in the average range, but WJ-III ACH Understanding Directions was in the low average range. John’s ability to express his ideas in oral language on the CELF-4 Formulated Sentences fell in the borderline range.

Reading profile.

Jack’s accuracy for orally reading real words (WJ-III ACH Word Identification) and pseudowords (WJ-III ACH Word Attack) was in the average range. However, his oral reading rate for single real words (TOWRE-2 Sight Word Efficiency) or pseudowords (TOWRE-2 Phonemic Decoding Efficiency) was in the borderline range. His reading comprehension ability (WJ-III ACH Passage Comprehension) was in the borderline range. Thus, his ability to orally read real words and pseudowords accurately was considerably more developed than his ability to read real words and pseudowords quickly or to comprehend read text.

John’s accuracy for orally reading single real words (WJ-III ACH Word Identification) was in the below average range, but his accuracy for orally reading pseudowords (WJ-III ACH Word Attack) was in the low average range. However, his oral reading rate for single real words (TOWRE-2 Sight Word Efficiency) or pseudowords (TOWRE-2 Phonemic Decoding Efficiency) was in the borderline range. His reading comprehension ability (WJ-III ACH Passage Comprehension) fell in the borderline range. Overall, John demonstrated a relative strength for accuracy of oral reading of pseudowords but relative weaknesses in all the other reading skills assessed.

Writing profile.

For writing the ordered letters of the alphabet from memory, Jack scored better when typing and allowed to look at the keys than when handwriting (either printing or cursive). He could not write any letters in cursive. For sentence copying (model present for letter writing), he scored in the borderline range for copying in his best handwriting (DASH Copy Best) but below average range for rate (DASH Copy Fast). Jack demonstrated a relative strength in choosing the correct spelling among phonological foils (TOC Word Choice) in the low average range and a relative weakness in the other two spelling skills with performance in the borderline range—dictated spelling (WIAT-III Spelling) and word anagrams (TOC Word Scrambles—reordering letters to create correctly spelled real words). His sentence composing was in the borderline range on both WIAT-III Combining Sentences and WJ-III ACH Writing Fluency.

John performed best when producing alphabetic letters with the keyboard compared to handwriting manuscript or cursive letters. He could not write any letters in cursive. His performance on sentence copying was in the borderline range for both DASH Copy Best and Copy Fast. John scored higher (low average range) on measures requiring spelling judgments (TOC Word Choice and Word Scrambles) than dictated spelling (WIAT-III Spelling, borderline range). His sentence composing was in the below average range on both WIAT-III Combining Sentences and WJ-III ACH Writing Fluency.

Executive functions profile.

Jack’s executive functions were variable. Jack’s scaled score fell in the below average range for selective attention (D-KEFS Color Word Form Inhibition). His abilities to rapidly name lower case letters (average range on RAN) and switch attention (low average range on RAS) were relative strengths compared to his selective attention. Jack demonstrated a weakness in the orthographic loop (Alphabet 15 Rapid Automatic Letter Writing z-score).

John’s executive functions were also variable. He performed in the below average range on selective attention (D-KEFS Color Word Form Inhibition) and orthographic loop (Alphabet 15 Rapid Automatic Letter Writing z-score). In contrast, he performed in the average range on rapidly naming lowercase letters (RAN) and low average on switching attention (RAS).

Comparison of Jack’s and John’s preintervention profiles.

See Table 1 for an overview of observed intra-individual differences (i.e., comparing within the categories of skills in the columns for Jack and in the columns for John) and inter-individual differences (i.e., comparing scores of Jack and John for the same measure across the rows). Both Jack and John exhibited variability within their own learning profiles (intra-individual differences) before participating in the instructional intervention. They exhibited patterns of strengths and weaknesses in cognitive, aural and oral language, reading, writing, and executive functions. Some of these strengths and weaknesses were shared in common, for example on executive functions, but some of these were not shared in common (inter-individual differences).

Research Aim 2: Response to Instruction Based on Pretest-Posttest Changes

To compare Jack and John on their response to computerized instruction from pretest to posttest on standardized tests with norms, see Table 1 for measures on which they met the criterion adopted for reliable response to instruction in the current study and other published research using these lessons (at least one-third standard deviation on standard scores or scaled scores). An asterisk beside a measure in Table 1 indicates whether either Jack or John met the criterion on that measure. Posttest scores and ranges are provided in the main text along with the pretest scores and ranges (in Table 1 ) for pretest-posttest changes that met the criteria used in this and prior research involving the same computerized instruction. Only raw scores and z-scores are available for the Alphabet Writing from Memory Task and Orthographic Loop, respectively.

Aural language, oral language, and reading.

Only John showed response to computerized instruction in aural and oral language. On the CELF-4 Formulated Sentences, his scaled score changed from a 5 in the borderline range to 7 in the low average range. Neither Jack nor John showed response to computerized instruction in reading.

Alphabet writing in alphabetic order from memory.

Jack showed response to computerized instruction in manuscript printing (from 3 to 24 legible letters), cursive writing (from 0 to legible 5 letters), and in keyboarding (from 19 to all 26 accurate key presses). John showed response to computerized instruction in manuscript printing (from 4 to 12 legible letters), cursive writing (from 0 to 8 legible letters), and keyboarding (from 8 to all 26 accurate key presses).

Jack showed response to computerized instruction in dictated spelling (from 78 in the borderline range to 90 in the average range on WIAT-III Spelling), TOC Word Choice (from 7 in the low average range to 9 in the average range), and TOC Word Scrambles (from 4 in the borderline range to 7 in the low average range). John demonstrated response to computerized instruction in TOC Word Choice (from 6 in low average range to 7 in the low average range) and TOC Word Scrambles (from 6 in low average range to 8 in average range).

Jack showed response to computerized instruction in WIAT-III Sentence Combining (from 74 in the borderline range to 95 in the average range). John showed response to computerized instruction in WIAT-III Sentence Combining (from 69 in below average range to 80 in low average range) and WJ-III ACH Writing Fluency (from 57 in below average range to 78 in borderline range).

Executive functions:

Both participants showed response to computerized instruction in working memory components supporting the executive functions in language learning. Jack showed response to computerized instruction on D-KEFS Color Word Inhibition (from 1 in below average range to 6 in the low average range) and Orthographic Loop (from −2.50z in below average range to −1.63z in borderline range). John showed response to computerized instruction on RAS (from 85 in the low average range to 99 in the average range) and Orthographic Loop (from −2.48z in below average range to −1.80z in borderline range).

Summary response to instruction comparisons between participants.

Both participants displayed response to computerized instruction on seven measures: Sub-word Level Writing the Alphabet from Memory for manuscript, cursive, and keyboarding tasks; Word Level TOC Word Choice and TOC Word Scrambles, and Sentence Level WIAT-III Sentence Combining, as well as Orthographic Loop for integrating mental representations of letters with graphomotor output through the hand. John demonstrated response to computerized instruction on four additional measures: oral expression (CELF-4 Formulated Sentences), sentence copying (DASH Copy Best), sentence writing (WJ-III ACH Writing Fluency), and attention switching (RAS). Jack demonstrated response to computerized instruction on two additional measures: dictated spelling (WIAT-III) and selective attention (D-KEFS Color Word Form Inhibition). Neither participant showed response to computerized instruction on any reading skills (a possible explanation is offered in the discussion).

Research Aim 3: Response to Instruction for Personal Narratives across First Six Lessons

Table 2 provides the six personal narratives that Jack and John each composed. Jack produced writing during all six lessons for stylus and keyboarding conditions, but he produced more writing during the keyboarding condition (Lessons 4–6) than during the stylus condition (Lessons 1–3). For all six personal narratives, Jack wrote about topics unrelated to the task that were of interest to him, focusing on specific details or his beliefs about movie actors and video game characters. Although his texts produced for Lessons 1–5 appeared unrelated to the prompts, his text produced for Lesson 6 appeared implicitly and tangentially related to the administered prompt. The prompt for Lesson 6 asked Jack to write about his interests inside and outside of school, to which Jack wrote about Waluigi (a video game character), but he never identified this specifically as his interest. Overall, the nature of his personal narratives differed markedly from what was observed in other studies employing these tasks with typically developing writers and readers and students with dysgraphia, dyslexia, and OWL LD ( Tanimoto et al., 2015 ). He showed no evidence of applying the taught strategies for writing the next sentence or creating text structure ( Niedo et al., 2016 ).

John’s personal essays had been coded for length and for Level 1 Strategies for The Next Sentence and Level II Strategies for Connecting Sentences (which can co-occur with Level I strategies) by the first and last authors of Niedo et al. (2016) at the time that article was in preparation. All items were discussed until the two coders were in agreement. In contrast to Jack, John wrote more by stylus than by keyboarding. Although he generally wrote about the topic of the prompt assigned, for Personal Narrative 3 he appeared to have a flashback to earlier years in his schooling (upper elementary school rather than his life after schooling was over). Of the taught strategies described in Niedo et al. (2016) , John applied the following strategies (frequencies in parentheses) for each of the personal narratives across the six sessions (lessons). For Personal Narrative 1, John stated a goal (1). For Personal Narrative 2, John described and painted a picture with words (12), described observable behavior (4), described a state of mind or feeling (1), and qualified a prior statement (2). Across these Level I strategies, six co-occurred with tying other sentences together with a connecting word and/or sentence (Level II strategy). For Personal Narrative 3, John stated a wish (2), described observable behavior (2), qualified a prior statement (3), described and painted a picture in words (3), described a state of mind or feeling (2), and stated a goal or plan (1). Across these Level I strategies, one co-occurred with making a comment that interrupts the ideas in progress and continues with that idea and three co-occurred for tying other sentences together with a connecting word and/or sentence (Level II strategies). For Personal Narrative 4, John described and painted a picture in words (6), and each time co-occurred with tying the other sentences together with a connecting word and/or sentence (Level II strategy). For Personal Narrative 5, John described and painted a picture in words (3), qualified a prior sentence (2), described a state of mind or feeling (1). For Personal Narrative 6, John illustrated using one or more examples or counter-examples (2) and provided an explanation (1).

Length (number of sentences) and coherence (relevance of each sentence to the topic of the personal narrative) was computed for each personal narrative a participant wrote. For Personal Narrative 1, Jack wrote one sentence that was not on topic, while John wrote two sentences with one on topic. For Personal Narrative 2, Jack wrote one sentence that was not on topic, while John wrote 18 sentences with four on topic. For Personal Narrative 3, Jack wrote one sentence that was not on topic, while John wrote 13 sentences with one on topic. For Personal Narrative 4, Jack wrote seven sentences that were not on topic, while John wrote six sentences with all six on topic. For Personal Narrative 5, Jack wrote 19 sentences that were not on topic, while John wrote six sentences with all six on topic. For Personal Narrative 6, Jack wrote 32 sentences that were not on topic, while John wrote three sentences with three on topic.

Response to computerized instruction for personal narratives.

Jack showed increased sentence production from Lessons 1 and 2 to Lessons 5 and 6, possibly because of response to computerized instruction for transcription skills and/or use of keyboarding for the last three narratives, but not in writing on-topic, possibly because of his ongoing difficulties in translation (i.e., he never showed evidence of applying the taught strategies for composing—translating ideas into written language) and ADHD. John showed response to computerized instruction in translation (i.e., 100% sentences on-topic in last three personal narratives compared to far fewer on topic in the first three personal narratives). He also showed evidence of response to computerized instruction in translation based on use of the taught strategies for composing prior to writing the personal narratives. See Table 2 for the medium (stylus or keyboard) used to compose each personal narrative. The coders did not have difficulty deciphering the letters produced by stylus in these personal narratives.

Behavioral Observations during Computerized Instruction.

Jack was cooperative and completed assessments and lessons without exhibiting any behavioral difficulties, even though he rarely interacted with anyone else in the room—adults who were teachers monitoring participants’ attention to and engagement in the various computer learning activities or other students. When keyboarding, although familiar with the medium, Jack (like all participants) used hunting and pecking (rather than touch typing without looking at the keys). Additionally, Jack (like many other participants) often did not use the fully allotted time to complete learning activities like composing in contrast to the self-paced ones with the computer program transitioning to another learning activity immediately upon completion of that learning activity.

John, in contrast, although initially shy, became very sociable and personable and interacted with both the adults and the other students in the room when the computerized instruction took place. He responded cheerfully and cooperatively when reminded to focus on a task at hand. He did not distract the other students when they were working but appeared to enjoy talking to them during arrival and set up and at dismissal when parents arrived for their children and laptops were put away.

First, the results are discussed in reference to each of the research aims. Next, the limitations of this exploratory case study comparison of two contrasting disabilities are considered. Finally, the potential contributions from the current study are considered along with proposals for future research directions based on the findings of the current study.

Research Aim 1: Comparing ASD with OWL LD on Learning Profiles

As summarized in the results section, when assessment is based on cognition (social, verbal, and nonverbal), aural and oral language, reading, writing, and executive functions for language learning, the learning profiles for ASD and OWL LD share common and unique relative strengths and weaknesses. Past research has documented the challenges that individuals with ASD have in oral language and reading (e.g., Randi, Newman, & Grigorenko, 2010 ), but the current research supported heterogenous strengths and weaknesses when an overall learning profile was obtained (e.g., Bauminger-Zviely, 2014 ; Mayes & Calhoun, 2008 ). Moreover, the learning profile allowed for the assessment of not only writing skills but also associated skills that affect writing development. This is a noted contribution as few past empirical studies have included skills other than cognitive abilities when assessing writing abilities (i.e., Brown et al., 2014 ; Dockrell et al., 2014 ; Zajic et al., 2018 ). Additionally, the focus on writing abilities is needed when past research has often only assessed other academic abilities like reading and mathematics (e.g., Jones et al., 2009 ).

In addition, assessing the same overall learning profile allowed for a comparison of common and unique strengths and weaknesses within an individual (intra-individual differences) and between individuals (inter-individual differences) with contrasting disabilities. Both children demonstrated language difficulties, but these contrasted in some ways, which were described in reference to findings of Specific Aim 2, especially for literacy (reading and writing). For example, both children demonstrated significantly impaired social cognition via assessment but demonstrated contrasting social behaviors. While Jack rarely interacted with others and was receiving special education services at school for social skills difficulties, John demonstrated shy behaviors but interacted with the adults and other children in socially appropriate ways. Exclusive use of group comparisons of multiple individuals with a specific disability does not enable comparisons at the individual level. Individuals with specific disabilities may exhibit hallmark deficits associated with a particular diagnosis but also exhibit their own variations in patterns of strengths and weaknesses over and beyond the hallmark patterns.

Research Aim 2: Response to Computerized Instruction for ASD and OWL LD

As reported in the results for assessment measures on which students met criteria for response to computerized instruction, both children showed similar responses on some measures but differed on others. Overall, both showed response to computerized instruction on multiple levels of language for writing ranging from sub-word letter production to word level spelling to sentence level composing. Interestingly, both Jack and John improved in handwriting/letter production (for manuscript, cursive, and keyboarding) from pretest to posttest following the computerized handwriting instruction. As with other students with SLDs (dysgraphia, dyslexia, and OWL LD; Tanimoto et al., 2015 ), John showed response to computerized instruction on two hallmark measures that contributed to his diagnosis—oral sentence formulation (composing) and written sentence construction (composing). Of the two sentence composing measures in Table 1 (WIAT-III Sentence Combining and WJ-III ACH Writing Fluency), Jack showed response to computerized instruction on one, and John showed it on both (see the asterisks in Table 1 ). Unlike the Tanimoto et al. (2015) study, neither of the boys demonstrated response to computerized instruction for any of the reading measures. One possible reason for this finding is that the computerized intervention emphasized silent reading skills needed in the upper grades when most reading is silent, but the pretest and posttest measures used oral reading tests or a test that required an oral response. Both boys improved on at least two executive functions for language learning following the computerized instruction developed for this purpose.

Research Aim 3: Response to Computerized Instruction for Personal Narratives

Although Jack produced more words while keyboarding, his personal narrative composing did not show response to computerized instruction across the six sessions and was markedly poorer than what was observed in the Tanimoto et al. (2015) and Niedo et al. (2016) studies of response to computerized instruction with the same computerized instruction for personal narratives. These findings do align with past research on ASD showing preference for or better improvement when using keyboarding compared to handwriting for some children with ASD ( Ashburner et al., 2012 ; Schneider et al., 2013 ). Jack also showed consistent translation difficulties by producing predominantly off topic writing. John produced more text while writing with a stylus and produced some on topic writing for the demands of the particular personal narrative prompts. Also, John applied some of the taught strategies for composing, but Jack never did. Though limited to these case comparisons, these findings support distinct differences in translation processes between these children with ASD and OWL LD.

Different theories provide insight into the off-topic writing of both ASD and OWL LD. From a social communication perspective, Jack may have experienced difficulties interpreting what he needed to do for writing for an audience on a particular task and defaulted to producing text that he wanted to produce that was of interest to him. Challenges with social communication have been shown to be predictive of translation abilities but not transcription quality in children with ASD ( Dockrell et al., 2014 ). From an executive function perspective, Jack may have experienced difficulties in self-regulating his behaviors for the task or adopted self-directed goals rather than task-specific goals. Perhaps self-management instruction would help Jack stay on topic and be mindful of his audience more so than the prompting used in this intervention (e.g., Asaro-Saddler, 2016 ). From a motivational perspective, Jack may have preferred writing about his own interests compared to topics offered by the computer. But, is it possible thinking about his own autobiography triggered text production about the various video games he enjoys playing? For example, Jack’s last personal narrative writing sample focused on Waluigi, a video game character of interest to Jack, but he did not make the reason for writing about Waluigi explicit to the audience. Although Jack did not show response to computerized instruction on his personal narratives, he did on one of the standardized, normed measures of composing (see WIAT-III Sentence Combining in Table 1 ). Whereas composing personal narratives requires self-generation of thoughts and translating them into written language, sentence combining provides support for the initial generation of ideas and only requires that the writer combine them to express those ideas in one complete sentence. Thus, independent translation may pose special challenges for ASD. Also, challenges with on-topic production in narrative generation may be due not only to social communication challenges (e.g., Losh & Capps, 2003 ) but also bias for detail-focused processing rather than global processing (e.g., Happé & Frith, 2006 ). It appeared Jack fixated on topics relevant to him once he was able to write with the keyboard, thus he demonstrated increased transcription abilities but produced writing that showed difficulties attending to the task demands.

Limitations

As is the case with in-depth case studies, one limitation of the current study is the limited sample size of one for each disability. Results for both Jack and John cannot be generalized to all individuals with ASD or OWL LD, respectively. This exploratory study offered a methodological approach for assessing overall learning profiles to identify intra-individual differences within disability groups as well as inter-individual differences between disability groups. This study did not seek to answer questions about the causal mechanisms underlying the language learning difficulties experienced by children with ASD or OWL LD, but the hypotheses and observations raised from this study offer insights for designing potential future larger scale studies. As the intervention was designed for children with SLDs, the intervention offered tentative interpretations rather than definite answers about effective instruction for children with ASD. Additionally, while the current study focused on personal narratives as an informative initial comparison between ASD and OWL LD, further research is needed to understand the challenges both groups of children may experience with learning to integrate multiple levels of language in writing for different types of writing tasks both at this transition point to secondary education and across the earlier elementary grades.

Future Research Directions and Contributions of the Current Research Findings

Educational applications..

Simply using an evidence-based intervention designed for individuals with SLDs may not help a student like Jack with ASD without further adaptations aligned with the specific learning profile. For example, although Jack showed response to computerized instruction for two executive functions assessed with normed measures, he did not appear to apply executive functions to manage meeting task demands in his personal narrative composing. Effectiveness of additional supports beyond those needed for SLDs ( Price et al., 2017 ) like those offered by Fleury et al. (2014) , Asaro-Saddler (2015) , or Pennington and Delano (2012) for supporting writing (e.g., priming, peer support, video modeling, explicit strategy instruction, self-management instruction, and graphic organizers) should be investigated in future ASD research with attention to intra-individual as well as inter-individual differences. Further research is needed on the effectiveness of alternative approaches to intervening with specific handwriting and composing difficulties experienced by children with ASD. Different types of assistive technologies have been used for children who demonstrate ongoing difficulties with writing (e.g., MacArthur, 2013 ), and researchers are just beginning to understand how specific assistive technologies can support the challenges children with ASD experience with handwriting, writing conventions, prewriting, and the writing process ( Coffin et al., 2016 ). Future research should continue to draw on both what is known about the effective approaches to the multifaceted academic challenges of children with ASD ( Fleury et al., 2014 ; Wong et al., 2015 ) and to the effective writing practices available for students struggling with writing ( Graham & Perrin, 2007 ) to design effective writing interventions for children with ASD (e.g., Asaro-Saddler, 2015 , Pennington & Delano, 2012 ). Such research needs to incorporate broader perspectives about relationships between the linguistic, cognitive, and social demands of writing and difficulties presented by children with ASD ( Dockrell et al., 2014 ; Zajic et al., 2018 ). The multileveled language framework presented here is but one approach to understanding these complexities for students with ASD like Jack in order to provide appropriate instruction.

Unpacking the writing challenges children with ASD can face requires multifaceted, informed approaches that seek to assess and contextualize underlying difficulties associated with writing and can be used to develop effective instructional approaches. Although research has continued to improve over the last two decades for both the identification of and the intervention for these specific writing challenges, researchers and educators still have much more to understand regarding how to support children with ASD who experience difficulties with writing. A similar case can be made for OWL LD. Not all reading problems are dyslexia, and some students with SLDs such as those with OWL LD need more than phonological awareness and phonological decoding instruction, like orthographic, morphological, and syntactic awareness learning activities ( Berninger & Wolf, 2016 ). For example, future research should investigate how prevalent social cognition difficulties are in OWL LD, as found in the current study, and thus require teaching perspective taking in writing for varied audiences. Also, this study focused on a specific stage of development—transition to high school (9 th grade) after the summer intervention. Future research should conduct cross-sectional and longitudinal comparison studies of children with ASD and OWL LD across elementary and secondary grades.

Research design issues.

Both group designs with multiple participants in well-defined groups and individual case designs with well-defined multi-skill learning profiles contribute to evidence-based practices. The group designs help identify reliable findings about evidence-based practices that can be generalized to establish best practices for students in general, if qualified by the need to individualize for some students. The individual case designs that compare cases that contrast on a well-defined specific variable help with translation science—the application of research findings for general categories of learners to an individual within such categories. Individuals vary within groups and between groups, and both intra-individual and inter-individual differences are relevant to translation science for assessment and instruction, that is, applying knowledge from research on general principles of effective instruction to teaching a particular individual student who may share commonalities as well as variations with the research participants.

CONCLUSIONS

This study analyzed the academic learning challenges of an adolescent with ASD and an adolescent with OWL LD both before and after computerized instruction. The results were informative about the common and unique features of learning profiles and response to instruction for students with these disabilities and might inform future needed research on understanding the transcription and translation processes in larger groups of children with ASD or OWL LD. While the profiles demonstrated cannot fully represent all children with ASD or OWL LD, the approach described here provides a comprehensive framework for understanding the individual learner and the heterogeneous learning challenges experienced by children with ASD or OWL LD. Comprehensive assessment of profiles of relevant skills helps educational practitioners design interventions individually tailored to individual students and assess their response to the interventions.

Funding Disclosure:

This research was supported by HD P50HD071764 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development at the National Institutes of Health to the University of Washington. Matthew C. Zajic received support from a Postdoctoral Research Training Program in Special Education and Early Intervention Grant (R324B180034) from the National Center for Special Education Research at the Institute of Education Sciences during the drafting of this manuscript.

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