Computer‐Based Graphic Organizers for Students with LD: A Systematic Review of Literature

Abstract

This article presents a systematic review of the literature for studies that utilized computerbased graphic organizers for students with learning disabilities. A comprehensive search yielded 12 studies that were coded and analyzed. The authors investigated the effectiveness of the treatments on academic outcomes, and selected integral instructional and methodological features for evaluation in order to delineate practical implications and prioritize future research. Findings revealed high effect sizes on social studies measures and encouraging results for written expression, while comprehension results were less promising. This review found no evidence suggesting that these treatments were efficacious without the use of explicit instruction and guided practice.

The Use of Technology to Assist School-Aged Students with High Incidence Special Needs in Reading

“…Much more promising is examining areas of reading instruction that utilize traditional best practices, but either pair them with online reading work after teacher instruction [28][29][30] or present traditional reading strategies online [31][32][33][34][35]. Though the results of these studies are far from conclusive, they point to several directions moving forward to support SWSNs in their work in online reading environments around what is already known about quality reading strategies.…”

“…One such strategy centers around graphic organizers [28] which pair a visual to help students organize story events to better comprehend text. Using computerized graphic organizers helped SWSNs with comprehension both in subject area instruction, as well as in reading traditional narrative writing.…”

Increasing College Entrance Testing Vocabulary for Secondary Students with High-Incidence Disabilities

“…Even though the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 both mandate improving efforts for students with disabilities as well as the consideration and appropriate inclusions of effective use of technology, there is very little research to support this combined effort (Kennedy et al, 2014;Kuder, 2017, Lombardi et al, 2017. According to a recent meta-analysis of the literature on this topic by Ciullo and Reutebuch (2013), twelve studies met both criteria and of those, and only eight of the twelve centered on students eligible for services under the category of specific learning disabilities in secondary schools (grades 6-12) albeit, these eight did render positive results. In each case, their positive results were contingent upon the principles of explicit instruction (Ciullo & Reutebuch, 2013), but again, only eight focused on secondary students with learning disabilities.…”

“…According to a recent meta-analysis of the literature on this topic by Ciullo and Reutebuch (2013), twelve studies met both criteria and of those, and only eight of the twelve centered on students eligible for services under the category of specific learning disabilities in secondary schools (grades 6-12) albeit, these eight did render positive results. In each case, their positive results were contingent upon the principles of explicit instruction (Ciullo & Reutebuch, 2013), but again, only eight focused on secondary students with learning disabilities.…”

“…The findings from this study do indicate a functional relation between a computer-based, graphic organizer, using the Real-World Connections Vocabulary (Ellis, 2015) and 10 th grade students' vocabulary acquisition, but some limitations do exist. First, since treatment integrity was only completed in 33% of the studies, this presents a threat to internal validity and future studies might increase the percentage of sessions assessed (Ciullo & Reutebuch, 2013;Swanson, Wanzek, Haring, Ciullo & McCulley, 2013). Also, this study was conducted during the summer months when each student was free of other academic restraints.…”