Communication skills, educational achievement and biographic characteristics of children with moderate learning difficulties

Abstract

This paper examines aspects ofintellectual. linguistic and academic abilities of 71 children with moderate learning difficulties. A profile of these abilities is presented and analysed. The profile provides a rationale for mounting a long-term intervention study designed to develop these children's communication abilities. It also provides us with a baseline model against which the effects ofthe intervention can be assessed. In addition, the profile explores the relationships between several aspects ofacademic achievement and biographicalfactors such as age, gender. season of birth and IQ. Statistical analysis reveals significant relationships between several ofthe variables investigated. The implications ofthis analysis for educational practice are considered.

An intervention programme for children with moderate learning difficulties

“…Although these gains are small (on average two months reading gains in 12 weeks), these increases are theoretically significant given what we know about this population of children. For example, in a previous study of children with learning difficulties aged between 13 and 15 years (Lamb, Bibby, Wood & Leyden, 1997) we reported correlations between chronological age and reading age near to zero. This result led us to expect no change in reading performance over the short period of the intervention programme described here under normal circumstances.…”

The Effect of Metacognitive-Based Contextual Learning Model on Fifth-Grade Students’ Problem-Solving and Mathematical Communication Skills

“…The importance of developing students' mathematical communication skills has been well documented; for instructors, these core competencies are related to reading comprehension, self-efficacy and scientific literacy (Hopf & Colby, 1992;Lamb et al, 1997;Spektor-Levy et al, 2009). However, recent findings showed that communication skills in mathematics curriculum are rarely trained by teachers, so students' mathematical communication skills tend to be unsatisfactory (Stoffelsma & Spooren, 2019;Yaniawati et al, 2019).…”