Murphy Annemarie, Bailey Benjamin, Arciuli Joanne
Caring Futures Institute, College of Nursing and Health Sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia.
Br J Educ Psychol. 2023 Mar;93(1):333-352. doi: 10.1111/bjep.12558. Epub 2022 Nov 21.
COVID-19 has resulted in some educators and allied health practitioners transitioning to online delivery of literacy instruction. As far as we are aware, no studies have investigated online delivery of comprehensive literacy instruction for children with Down syndrome.
In this pilot study, we explore the efficacy of online delivery of ABRACADABRA (a free literacy web application) for children with Down syndrome, alongside supplementary parent-led shared book reading, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Six children with Down syndrome, aged 8-12 years, participated in this within-participants design study.
Participants acted as their own controls with outcome variables measured at three timepoints: baseline, pre-instruction and post-instruction. Children participated in 16-18 hrs of one-to-one literacy instruction online over a 6-week instruction phase, along with twice weekly parent-led shared book reading activities.
Outcomes from standardized assessments revealed statistically significant improvements in word- and passage-level reading accuracy skills over the instruction phase (pre-instruction to post-instruction) compared with the no-instruction control phase (baseline to pre-instruction). Improvements in reading comprehension skills were inconsistent across assessment measures and statistical analyses.
Children with Down syndrome can benefit from comprehensive literacy instruction delivered via telepractice. Our study provides critical initial evidence of successful service delivery during a global pandemic and beyond.
新冠疫情导致一些教育工作者和相关健康从业者转向在线提供读写能力教学。据我们所知，尚无研究调查过针对唐氏综合征儿童的在线综合读写能力教学。
在这项试点研究中，我们探讨在新冠疫情期间，通过在线方式为唐氏综合征儿童提供ABRACADABRA（一款免费的读写网络应用程序）教学，并辅以家长主导的补充性共读活动的效果。
六名年龄在8至12岁的唐氏综合征儿童参与了这项自身对照设计研究。
参与者自身作为对照，在三个时间点测量结果变量：基线、教学前和教学后。儿童在为期6周的教学阶段中，通过在线方式参与了16至18小时的一对一读写能力教学，同时每周还有两次家长主导的共读活动。
标准化评估结果显示，与无教学对照阶段（基线至教学前）相比，在教学阶段（教学前至教学后），单词和篇章层面的阅读准确性技能有统计学意义上的显著提高。阅读理解技能的提高在评估指标和统计分析中并不一致。
唐氏综合征儿童可以从通过远程实践提供的综合读写能力教学中受益。我们的研究为在全球疫情期间及之后成功提供服务提供了关键的初步证据。
