Abstract
Investigators have demonstrated that increased teacher wait-time is effective in increasing frequency of responses of non-handicapped children. When provided with an extended wait-time, non-handicapped students answer teacher questions more appropriately and volunteer answers more frequently. To date, investigators have not studied the effect(s) of teacher wait-time on responses of developmentally delayed children under the age of three. In this study, the effects of teacher wait-time of one second and teacher wait-time of five seconds on the responses of two developmentally delayed children (i.e., one child with Down syndrome and one child with cerebral palsy) and one non-delayed child were compared. All subjects were between two and three years of age. The subjects’ performances were evaluated by two means: a) frequency of responses and b) accuracy of responses. Teacher wait-time of five seconds was found to be superior to teacher wait-time of one second in increasing frequency of responses of the two developmentally delayed subjects. A difference in accuracy measures, in favor of the five second wait-time interval, of the developmentally delayed subjects was also noted. There appeared to be little differences between frequency or accuracy measures of the non-delayed child on any of the tasks.
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