Closing the Gap: Can embedded supports help students with learning disabilities comprehend grade level science text? This document was produced under U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs No. H327S The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the positions or policies of the Department of Education. No official endorsement by the U.S. Department of Education of any product, commodity, service or enterprise mentioned in this publication is intended or should be inferred. This product is public domain. Authorization to reproduce it in whole or in part is granted. Andrea Boykin, George Mason University Introduction Government mandates require students with disabilities educated in separate facilities or self contained classroom to access grade level standards (Cawley, 2002). Students with learning disabilities may find content area text especially challenging to read (Garjia, 2007). Students in special education accessing grade level curriculum require supports to access and succeed within the curriculum. Regardless of a students disability, assistive technology paired with specific strategies can help students access grade level text. Previous Research Text to Speech Research has determined that audio text, including text to speech, can increase student comprehension. (Dolan, 2005; Mooram, 2010, Dawson, 2000,) Graphic Organizers Research presents conflicting results for the use of graphic organizers with TTS to support student comprehension (Boyle, 2002;Douglas, 2011). Purpose Although both TTS and graphic organizers can support comprehension, very little research has combined graphic organizers and TTS features as a combined strategy in supporting the comprehension of middle school students accessing grade level curriculum. Research Questions Is there a functional relation between text to speech with dynamic highlighting and graphic organizers that would cause an increase in expository text comprehension of middle school students with learning disabilities? Is there a differential effect that would result in an immediate level change between expository text comprehension of elementary students with learning disabilities when accessing digital text with text to speech features and dynamic highlighting compared to utilizing text to speech features with the support of digital graphic organizers and dynamic highlighting? Participants NameGradeDisabilityGenderEthnicity Independent Reading Level Passage Comprehension Ania7thLDFA.A1 st grade Yuri7thLDMA.A4 th grade Zeke6thLD, OHIMA.A2.2 grade2.4 grade Chris7thAutism, LD, OHI MA.A2.0 grade1.4 Setting A private special education school located in an urban city on the east coast. Method Science Passages Multiple baseline and alternating treatment single subject design replicated across participants. Minimum of five treatment points in baseline and ten for treatment. Alternating treatment design was replicated across participants and utilized with each participant receiving the same treatment and passage at the same time. -6 th and 7 th grade students with LD as one of their disabilities were included in the study. Students must have an independent comprehension two years or more below grade level and perform poorly on in class comprehension activities. Students were excluded from study who have receptive language deficits. -Italicized scores are from Woodcock Johnson Reading Assessment Variables Passages pulled from the Jason Project, an online science curriculum for middle school students that correspond to state standards from 6 th and 7 th grade level. Text ranged from 4-12 th grade. Each passage was modified to have a readability level of 8.9 to 9.9. Number of words ranged from 220 to 290. Procedures Students read a randomly selected passage out loud in baseline. The student could read the passage again, but no students looked over the passage before answering questions. Once the study stated they were ready to answer questions, each multiple choice question was read twice, and the answer selections once. The student viewed questions and answer selections on a computer. Once the student selected an answer, the researcher highlighted that choice. Students then were asked content interview questions and responded out loud. In Treatment, students read randomly selected passage with either TTS and graphic organizer or TTS and dynamic highlighting. Responses were scored using scoring rubrics. Multiple Choice Content Interview 5 researcher created multiple choice questions per passage 4 researcher created content interview questions per passage. Pre and post self-efficacy questionnaire Dependent Independent Software program: Read Out Loud Embedded graphic organizer Text to speech and dynamic highlighting Chris Ania Yuri Zeke Yuri Ania Chris Multiple choice data had high variability in baseline and treatment. Overall PEM for embedded supports combined, TTS, and graphic organizers is 34%, 34%, 41%, respectively. Content interview responses have less variability in baseline and treatment. Overall PEM for embedded supports combined, TTS, and graphic organizers is 83%, 80%, 86% respectively. Results Discussion Embedded support features increased comprehension. Graphic organizers had a greater impact on comprehension compared to TTS alone. Multiple choice may accurately reflect student comprehension. Teachers should utilize TTS with embedded supports to help students with learning disabilities access grade level text and utilize multiple methods of assessment to determine a students comprehension.