Date Approved

5-1-1995

Embargo Period

9-11-2016

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

M.A. in Learning Disabilities

Department

Interdisciplinary and Inclusive Education

College

College of Education

Advisor

Urban, Stanley J.

Subject(s)

Achievement motivation; Attention; Learning disabled--Education--United States

Disciplines

Disability and Equity in Education

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to determine if self-recording of attention to task after cueing improves the performance of learning disabled students. Subjects were fifty-two students in two eighth grade American History classes. The experimental group (n=25) of students had within it a subgroup of thirteen students classified perceptually impaired with moderate to severe attention disorder. Another subgroup of twelve non-learning disabled students within the same class received intervention. The control group (n=27) were all regular education students. Both groups were taught the same lessons using similar formats. A serious limitation of this study is that a small convenience sample was used, not randomly selected, and therefore, not representative of the target population.

The study examines the relationship between attention and academic achievement. Baseline for attention was established with a teacher monitoring of on-task behavior. During the intervention phase, the students were instructed to record their behavior upon hearing an audible cue. Baseline for achievement was established by use of a pretest. Form B of the same test was administered as a posttest to students following intervention. Achievement gains were analyzed and the t-test of paired samples was used to determine significance. Descriptive statistics were used to show individual gains in performance for learning disabled students.

Analysis of data shows that while there was no statistical difference between the experimental and control groups, there was a difference between the learning disabled and non-learning disabled students receiving the same intervention. Learning disabled students, when cued, had scores in time-on-task equal to non-learning disabled students in the control group, and three times higher than non-learning disabled receiving the same intervention. Posttest mean scores in achievement for learning disabled students were higher than both the control group and the non-learning disabled students in the same room. For all but one student, cueing was helpful for increasing on-task behaviors and achievement for learning disabled students. Results suggest that cueing is an effective teaching strategy for students with Attention Deficit Disorder.

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