Research Summary
Decision-Making
Vaughn, S., Gersten, R., & Chard,
D. J. (2000). The Underlying Message in LD Intervention
Research: Findings from Research Syntheses. (Exceptional
Children, 67(1), 99-114.)
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Short Summary of Article: This
article summarizes findings from research on
interventions that benefit students with learning
disabilities. First and most importantly, they
found that teaching strategies that work for
students with learning disabilities benefit all
students and in many cases, higher-achieving
students benefit even more from the strategies
designed to help low-achieving students. Other
factors related to success for students with
learning disabilities include: (a) maintaining high
level of success, (b) teaching small interactive
groups of 6 or fewer students, and (c) requiring
students to generate questions while reading or
working on math or science problems. Peer tutoring
works for students with disabilities, especially
when they serve in the role of tutor. Academic
interventions are the best means for targeting
self-concept.
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1. "In all cases where interventions have
demonstrated significant positive effects for students
with LD, they have resulted in at least as high (and most
often higher) effect sizes for all other students in the
class, including average and high-achieving students." p.
108
2. Factors that explained the common variance in
achievement outcomes include: (a) control of task
difficulty- sequencing examples and problems to maintain
high levels of student success, (b) teaching students
with LD in small interactive groups of six or fewer
students, and (c) directed response questioning- using
procedures that teach students to generate questions
while reading or working on a scientific or mathematical
problem.
3. "Descriptive research reveals that a major reason
many children with LD experience poor comprehension is
due to a failure to read strategically and to
spontaneously monitor their understanding of what is
being read." p. 103
4. "Making instruction visible and explicit is an
essential feature of effective interventions for students
with LD." p. 108
5. "Interactive dialogue between teacher and student
and between students appears to be a critical component
of effective interventions in reading and writing." p.
108
6. "Interaction between students in the form of peer
tutoring is also associated with improved outcomes for
all students, and particularly for students with
disabilities when they serve in the role of the tutor."
p. 109
7. "In the areas of reading comprehension, written
expression, and general higher-order processing,
procedural facilitators or strategies assist students to
develop a plan of action to guide their learning
activities. These plans of action often go undiscovered
by students with LD. This spontaneous application of
strategies would seem to be facilitated by explicitly
teaching students where, when, and how to use a
particular strategy." p. 109
8. "Additionally, a recent synthesis examining the
effects of intervention research on the self-concept of
students with LD indicates at the elementary level that
academic interventions are the most effective means to
improved self-concept." p. 111
