Improving the listening comprehension of students with intellectual disability who are alternative and augmentative communication users through shared text reading

Abstract

Developing listening comprehension skills is crucial for enabling students with intellectual disability to understand the content of various texts. A single case experimental design with multiple baselines across participants was conducted to investigate the effects and social validity of a shared text reading intervention on the listening comprehension skills of three students with intellectual disability who are alternative and augmentative communication (AAC) users. The students’ teachers implemented the intervention. It included teaching Wh-word concepts, reading a narrative text simplified using easy-to-read rules, utilizing a communication board to enable students to answer literal and inferential comprehension questions, and using a system of least to most intrusive prompts. Findings indicated that all students could answer progressively more comprehension questions independently. Students could also give more correct responses when provided with prompts consisting of rereading the text or one or two sentences of the text containing the answer. Implications for optimizing shared text reading for students who are AAC users are discussed.