Reading as a Function of Visual and Auditory Process Training. Final Report / J. Michael Cook and Michael W. Welch.

Fifty-three students from six to thirteen years old participated in a study designed to compare the achievement of auditorally and visually deficient learning disabled students under three different treatment methods. Once students were found to meet the study's criteria for learning disabilities, they were further assessed, and 34 students were assigned to an auditory deficit category, nine were assigned to a visual deficit category, and ten were found to have no identified process dysfunction. Subjects within each category were randomly assigned to one of three treatment procedures: auditory process training and reading, visual process training and reading, and reading only. Prescriptions were written for subjects in the auditory and visual training groups, and students in these groups were taught in subgroups of no more than six for a total of 40 hours over a 20-week period, while the "reading only" group engaged in enrichment activities. Because of the low number of subjects identified as having a visual process skill deficit, the original design of the statistical analysis was not carried out; instead, data analysis was conducted on 22 of the subjects with auditory skill deficits. The major finding was that, of these subjects, those who had the auditory training failed to show improvement in auditory skills when compared to those in the other two treatment groups. Process training therefore remains essentially nonvalidated for increasing process skills. (GT)

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