Adapting the Question Answer Relationship Strategy for Middle School Students with Intellectual Disabilities

Abstract

SPECIAL EDUCATION

Adapting the Question Answer Relationship Strategy for Middle School Students with Intellectual Disabilities Kimberly A. Davidson Dissertation under the direction of Professor Christopher J. Lemons Much of the literacy research conducted with students with intellectual disabilities focuses on foundational, discrete reading skills such as letter and word identification, phonological awareness, phonics, and vocabulary. Few reading comprehension studies have been conducted for students with intellectual disabilities. The Question Answer Relationships (QAR) strategy has mixed evidence supporting its use with students who are typically developing, students at-risk of developing reading disabilities, and students with learning and intellectual disabilities. This experimental single case design study was conducted to examine the effects of instruction with an adapted version of the QAR strategy on answering text-dependent questions for students with intellectual disabilities. The participants were middle school students with intellectual disabilities who had varying levels of support needs. Three levels of scaffolding were provided in the intervention. Following intervention, each participant was able to learn the strategy steps and apply them to increase the percent of correct responses to three types of factual questions. However, students did not maintain mastery response levels after the intervention ended.