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Effective Intervention 2 Effective Intervention for Students with Specific Learning Disability: Effective Intervention 2












Effective Intervention for Students with Specific Learning Disability:
The Nature of Special Education

Kenneth A. Kavale
Regent University



























Effective Intervention 2
Abstract
The nature of effective instruction for students with specific learning disability is explored.
Process training has long been a prominent intervention but is shown to possess limited efficacy.
Better outcomes are attained when effective general education instructional techniques are
adapted for the purposes of special education. Related services are also shown to be useful
adjuncts to the instructional program. Special education for students with specific learning
disability appears to be more efficacious when education is emphasized over special
interventions not routinely found in general education.














Effective Intervention 2
Introduction

Because of the failure to profit from general education students with specific learning
disability (SLD) present significant challenges for special education. What are the best means for
enhancing academic performance? Answers have been difficult because, according to Sarason
and Doris (1979), special education often fails to learn from its past meaning that there is change
but not necessarily progress. Consequently, special education has demonstrated a cyclical nature
that swings between optimism and pessimism in about ten-year periods (Zigler and Hodapp,
1986). Under such circumstances, it has been difficult to provide an unequivocal answer to the
question: Is special education for student with SLD special?
The Nature of Special Education

The definition of special education as specifically designed instructionto meet the
unique needs of a child with a disability (U.S. Department of Education, 1999, p. 12425)
emphasizes individualized instruction but does not stipulate the nature of the instruction to be
provided. For students with SLD who failed in general education, special education has
historically opted for developing unique and exclusive methods that would differentiate it from
general education. Such special methods provided a distinct identity for special education but
also a separateness from general education that produced a skepticism about their benefits on the
part of general education. Because of its increased costs, special education became increasingly
accountable. Could special education for students with SLD substantiate its benefits?

As part of its distinct identity, special education viewed its primary goal to be one of
correcting or reversing the altered learning functions of students with SLD. Beginning with the
word of Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard with Victor, the wild boy of Areyron (Itard, 1806/1962),
special education has focused in enhancing cognitive processes. Thus, process training has a long Effective Intervention 2
history as a primary form of special education (see Mann, 1979). For students with SLD, process
training seeks to improve information-processing abilities so they may then be able to acquire
and assimilate information in the same manner as students in general education. Although
intuitively appealing, there has always been questions about whether or not training processes
can improve learning ability. Such questions date back to Itard whose innovative education
program produced limited improvement in Victors performance, and the enduring perception
that Itard had failed (e.g., Kirk & Johnson, 1951). In reality, the modest gains were substantial
and became more meaningful with a shift in emphasis from results to methods: Few current
education interests fail to be illuminated by [Itards] single slender volume (Gaynor, 1973, p.
445).

Process training continued to be a prominent form of special education and reached its
greatest prominence with the emergence of SLD as a category of special education.
Nevertheless, questions about the efficacy of process training also continued to be raised. These
questions were typically answered by a rendering of what the research says. The vagaries of
interpreting research findings are illustrated in the case of psycholinguistic training a prominent
form of process training during the 1960s and 1970s. Psycholinguistic training was developed by
Samuel A. Kirk and embodied the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities (ITPA). The model
was based on the assumption that psycholinguistic ability is comprised of discrete components
and that these components can be improved with training. By the mid 1970s research summaries
were available but they revealed very different interpretations.

A review of 39 studies offered by Hammill and Larsen (1974) concluded that, the idea
that psycholinguistic constructs, as measured by the ITPA, can be trained by existing techniques
remains nonvalidated (p. 11). In response, Minskoff (1975) offered a more positive evaluation Effective Intervention 2
and concluded that psycholinguistic deficits can be remediated. The Minskoff review was
immediately challenged by Newcomer, Larsen, and Hammill (1975) who again concluded that,
the reported literature raises doubts regarding the efficacy of presently available Kirk-Osgood
psycholinguistic training programs (p. 147). The divergent interpretations along with
increasingly harsh rhetoric made it increasingly difficult to determine what the research says
about the efficacy of psycholinguistic training.

Several years later, Lund, Foster, and McCall-Perez (1978) re-evaluated the original 39
studies, and concluded that, It is, therefore, not logical to conclude either that all studies in
psycholinguistic training are effective or that all studies in psycholinguistic training are not
effective (p. 319). Hammill and Larsen (1978) contested the Lund et al. analysis and concluded
that, the cumulative resultsfailed to demonstrate that psycholinguistic training has value (p.
413). Although polemics abounded, a primary question remained unanswered: What is really
known about the efficacy of psycholinguistic training?
META-ANALYSIS AND THE EFFICACY OF SPECIAL EDUCATION
Quantitative Research Synthesis
The case of psycholinguistic training demonstrates the difficulties in providing
unequivocal answers to questions about efficacy. The research investigating psycholinguistic
training typically used the scientific method to provide empirical evidence about efficacy
(Kauffman, 1987). As the case of psycholinguistic training demonstrates, difficulties arise when
individual study findings do not agree. Since none of the individual empirical investigations are
perfect (i.e. provides unequivocal evidence), individual studies need to be combined to
produce usable knowledge (Lindlom & Cohen, 1979) that provides the basis for decisions
about efficacy. Effective Intervention 2

The method used to combine findings about the efficacy of psycholinguistic training
encountered difficulties because they failed to accumulate knowledge in an objective and
systematic manner. To eliminate the subjectivity associated with traditional review methods (see
Cooper & Rosenthal, 1980), quantitative methods, usually termed meta-analysis (Glass, 1976),
have become a preferred means of synthesizing empirical findings. The effect size (ES) metric
used in meta-analysis imparts a clarity and explicitness to empirical evidence that makes
combined findings more objective and verifiable (Glass, McGaw, & Smith, 1981). Cohen
(1988), based on notions of statistical power, provided rules of thumb where ES may be
interpreted as small (.20), medium (.50), or large (.80).
Psycholinguistic Training
In an effort to bring closure to the psycholinguistic training debate, Kavale (1981)
conducted a meta-analysis on 34 studies that yielded an average ES of .39. In a statistical sense,
an ES shows outcomes in standard deviation (SD) units that can be interpreted in terms of
overlapping distributions (treatment vs control). The ES of .29 indicates that the average subject
receiving psycholinguistic training wold gain 15-percentile ranks on the ITPA, and would be
better off than 65% of comparison (no treatment) subjects. At a medium level, an ES of.39
does not represent an unequivocal endorsement of psycholinguistic training.

To gain additional insight, ES data were aggregated by ITPA subtest and 5 of 9 ITPA
subtests revealed small, albeit positive, effects. Such a modest level of response suggests that
training is not warranted in these 5 cases. For 4 subtests (Auditory and Visual Association,
Verbal and Manual Expression), training improves performance from 15 to 24 percentile ranks
and makes the average trained subject better off than approximately 63% to 74% of entrained
subjects. Effective Intervention 2

The findings regarding the Associative and Expressive constructs appear to belie the
conclusion of Hammill and Larsen (1974) that, neither the ITPA subtests nor their theoretical
constructs are particularly ameliorative (p. 12). Although encouraging, the meta-anal