Bridging the Gap Between Decoding and Special Education, Julia Catherine Dean, Special Education, Advanced Studies in Special Education, M.Ed

Bridging the Gap Between Decoding and Special Education

Julia Catherine Dean Special Education, M.Ed.

Dr. Pamela Mims, Faculty Advisor

Written by Hannah Warren

needs and wants: Such is the case with children who are nonvocal.

Catie’s birth name is Julia Catherine just as her grandmother and her great, great grandmother before her, both of whom were teachers. Though Catie’s grandmother always said she was destined to follow in her footsteps, Catie thought she would be anything except a teacher. Today, she recalls feeling drawn to education from the time she began elementary school. Catie chose to come to ETSU for her undergraduate degree over schools in

Over the years there has been a tremendous amount of research dedicated to identifying the most effective methods for teaching reading and literacy skills to young students. As you are scanning the pages in this magazine you are using those skills, which were likely taught to you in the earliest years of your education that have been tucked quietly in your subconscious, and now run in your brain like a program in the background of the computer. For some this is a very natural skill to acquire, while others, for a variety of reasons, can struggle to piece together letters and words to express their

Left, Dr. Pamela Mims, Right, Julia Catherine Dean Holliday

Cards used for decoding

Julia Catherine Dean Holliday, winner, Best Single Case Design, Council for Exceptional Children’s International Annual Conference, Portland, Oregon Fall, 2019 Kentucky because of the quality of ETSU’s special education program. During her time as an undergrad, she learned about professors’ research interests and knew she wanted to continue at ETSU to acquire her master’s degree. In speaking with Catie and Dr. Pamela Mims, her thesis chair, about Catie’s educational journey from undergraduate to graduate school, Catie talks of the guidance Dr. Mims has given her at every turn. When Catie began her master’s program, she knew she wanted to theme her thesis around literacy, but was not sure where to begin. Dr. Mims encouraged her to read and find a topic that really stood out to her. Once Catie learned of the research-to-practice gap in teaching decoding to students with severe disabilities, she asked herself why the education system wasn’t trying to teach these individuals decoding in the same way it is taught through the general education curriculum. This was the foundation that led to her thesis topic of teaching the skill of decoding to students with severe intellectual and/ or developmental disabilities (IDD) who are non-vocal verbal. Communication for these students can be difficult and relies on eye gazes or speech generating communication devices because their speech is so infrequent or unclear that it is not effective.

Despite the volume of research that has gone into teaching reading to students with IDD, most of this research did not involve students who were non-vocal verbal. Communication for some of these students can be difficult and relies on eye gaze, touch responses to communication pictures or objects, or speech generating communication devices. When students are first learning to decode, they learn the alphabet and the sounds that accompany each letter, a process called phonetic awareness and phonics. However, there are a spectrum of disabilities that can cause difficulty with this skill. Catie’s idea was to find a way to provide students with severe disabilities and verbal difficulties access to the decoding portion of the general curriculum using a form of systematic, direct instruction called constant time delay or CTD. CTD is an evidence-based practice and is considered an errorless form of learning, when implemented properly, wherein the student is not allowed to make mistakes. Catie created a set of five cards for each student subject

with pictures on them that correlated with specific sounds. For example, one card contained a red splash, so it correlated with the letter R and the sound /r/. This gave the students a choice to tie to the sound as well as a picture to help them apply this skill in different settings.

Inclusion criteria for her study required students to be in grades K-5, currently receiving special education services for a severe intellectual and/or developmental disability, in addition to having hearing and vision within normal ranges, and good attendance. Catie chose a multiple probe across participants, single case design where each student would act as their own control. Her intervention involved three students brought into the study one at a time, in a staggered fashion. She began by implementing the intervention with one student, and after that student began to show skill improvement (an increase in trend and level from baseline levels), she would test the students remaining in baseline conditions (those not yet receiving the intervention), to ensure that it was her intervention and not an outside factor that was influencing the learning process. If that was found to be the case, the next student would begin the intervention protocol, and the process was repeated until all three students were receiving the intervention.

Teaching through CTD begins with asking a question and stating/showing the student the answer without delay. As teaching progresses, after the stimulus to respond is presented, a specific amount of time is allowed to pass (e.g., 5 seconds) in order for the student to respond. If the student tries to answer incorrectly during that time, they are guided to the correct answer. If the student does not answer within that set time, a prompt is given. If the student responds correctly within the set time, an identified reinforcer is provided along with a specific praise statement (e.g., “Great job, that is the word ‘red’” while giving a high five.). Early on Catie used positive reinforcement to enhance the learning process and gradually phased it out as students progressed so the skill would not be dependent on that reinforcement. After students had demonstrated skill acquisition, Catie tested her student’s ability to maintain and generalize the skill. If students were able to demonstrate high levels of retention and generalization, she would have evidence that her intervention was successful. To test students’ skill maintenance, she performed the same exercise she used in the baseline phase after removing the intervention for three weeks. The students were able to maintain their skills after three weeks without the intervention. For generalization, she showed them each five new words they were not taught during the intervention, but contained the letters they were previously taught, but in a different order. Her students were able to generalize the skill she taught them. It was, a powerful moment of realization in her research since this population often struggles to generalize new skills with new people, new materials, or in settings outside the one in which they were taught. While Catie is passionate about research, she is equally interested in rural education systems like the one in her hometown, with only one high school in the entire county. She sees herself one day becoming a special education administrator; a role that would allow her to oversee all special education programs within a district. She encourages other ETSU graduates to experience the rural education setting and carry out further research. This winter Catie and Dr. Mims attended the Council for Exceptional Children’s International Annual Conference in Portland, Oregon where Catie entered her thesis in the Teacher Education Division’s Kaleidoscope Student Presentation competition with most entrants being in doctoral programs. This competition gives four awards in categories of best qualitative research, best quantitative research, mixed methods, and best single case design. Of all the entrants, Catie won best single case design. After defense of her thesis, Catie hopes to publish her findings in both academic journals (to add to the limited body of existing research on early literacy skills individuals with severe IDD) and practitioner journals such as TEACHING Exceptional Children where researchers publish their interventions in ways that make them accessible and practical for classroom teachers. It is important to Catie that if her intervention can help teach decoding to students with severe IDD who are non-vocal verbal that teachers who work with these individuals have access to these research-based methods so they can help their students unlock their full potential.

Left, Julia Catherine Dean Holliday, Right, Dr. Pamela Mims