Cognitive reading strategies instruction for children with specific language impairment

Abstract

The primarily goal of this study was to examine the patterns of cognitive and

language processing of children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) and how

they related to their text comprehension, interpreted within constructivism. The study

aimed to characterize the difference in language, character decoding, metacognitive

processing and text comprehension between children with SLI and those under typical

development; to identify the inter-relationships among their language processing,

character decoding, metacognitive processing and text comprehension; and to

investigate how the implementation of cognitive reading strategies instruction change

their language processing, character decoding, metacognitive processing, belief

towards reading and text comprehension. Two studies were carried out.

In Study One, 73 participants were recruited from two Hong Kong primary

schools; they were at second and third grade, 42 were diagnosed of SLI and the other

were under typical development. Standardized instruments were used to tap children’s

language processing and character decoding respectively. Researcher developed

Metacognitive Processing Scale were adopted to rate their metacognitive and deep

processing of text. A set of comprehension test, comprised of forced-choice inferential

questions and two recall tasks, were used to assess their depth in understanding

different types of text. Analyses indicated that SLI students did not only score poorer

in language processing, but also in character decoding, metacognitive processing and

text comprehension. Further analyses of both the entire sample and the SLI sample,

indicated that there were significant correlations between character decoding,

language processing, metacognitive processing with children’s text comprehension

scores.

In Study Two, there were 40 participants recruited from the SLI sample of the

Study One. Cognitive reading strategy instruction program were developed. 21

participants was randomly selected to receive the experimental instruction and the

another 19 were under conventional instruction as control. Besides the measures used

in the Study One, interviews and teacher-reporting questionnaires were used to tap

children’s belief towards reading and their classroom engagement. Analysis of

pre-instruction and post-instruction tests indicated the experimental children showed

significantly better progress on their oral language, text comprehension and belief

about reading. Both the experimental and the control group showed similar progress

on character decoding.

The study offers both theoretical and educational contribution on the literacy

development among the population of SLI. It identifies the role of metacognitive

processing on literacy achievement. It provides the evidence of implementing

cognitively-based reading strategies for literacy instruction for children with SLI

within Chinese context. Upon the introduction of inclusive education, teachers now

face students with much wider diversity, including a significant number of children

with SLI. Possible collaboration between frontline teachers and speech therapists in

designing potential classroom activities is discussed.