01 NRDC Dyslexia 1-88 update - Texthelp

86
Research Report
assistive technology in the workplace. The fourth study investigated the use of assistive
technology to supplement adult remediation.
There were different participants in each study. Those in the first study were a diverse group of
fifty Ivy League and community college students; three had acquired learning disabilities
through brain injury, while the others had been diagnosed as learning-disabled by criteria
which varied from group to group. Those in the second study were a subgroup of 29 student
participants from the first study. A research sample of eight learning-disabled participants in
the third study, an intervention lasting for three months, was identified ‘with considerable
effort’ through a variety of community agencies. A research sample of eight participants in the
fourth study consisted of dyslexic adults in a remedial language arts tutorial programme.
Outcomes were mixed. In summary, the investigators found that students for whom computer
reader technology is helpful tend to be slow readers with poor comprehension and limited
ability to sustain their concentration. However, they need good ability to integrate auditory and
visual stimuli. With much ground to make up, these users have a high potential gain from the
intervention. They nevertheless need to experience success when they first use the technology.
They also need to be strongly motivated, with a substantial reading workload. Although they
need sufficient time to use the system in a supportive environment, the time needed to scan
reading matter must not be so great as to offset any benefits.
Summary
It will be clear that the studies in the preceding section bear no relationship to two of the
theories described in Part two and none to any of the theoretical developments outlined in Part
three, although there is no necessity for such a relationship (Sroufe, 1997). The first two
theories in Part two and the first theory in Part three, are concerned with what students need
to learn, whereas the other theories seek to explain why students experience difficulty in
learning. Insofar as the evaluation studies have little to say to teachers of adults with learning
difficulties, good practice in this field rests almost entirely on professional judgement informed
by a background in linguistics and knowledge of the developmental course of normal reading
acquisition.
Interestingly, there appears to be no experimental evidence comparing group outcomes
between adult dyslexics and ‘ordinary’ adult literacy learners. As earlier studies have
concluded (e.g. Fowler & Scarborough, 1993), much of what has been learned from research
on reading disabilities may be pertinent to the identification and the literacy development of
adult learners generally—that is to say, to people who need to acquire knowledge and skills,
but who have no specific difficulty in learning. However, the applicability of that research may
itself be partly or largely a consequence of an over-extended reading disability concept. There
is evidence from intervention studies with children that systematic and explicit teaching of
phonics and exception words, with multisensory learning and intensive reinforcement, is
generally effective, but that there is a minority of students whom it does not appear to help
(Rack & Hatcher, 2002; Vellutino et al., 1996).
Are these ‘treatment-resisters’ the true ‘dyslexics’? The logic of this interpretation is
compelling and it is certainly easier to argue that ‘treatment-resisters’ are different from
‘normal’ readers in a way that ‘treatment-responders’ are not. Do ‘treatment-resisters’ have
anything in common with one another, apart from their difficulty in learning to read? The