The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of a home-based emergent literacy program for children with intellectual disabilities. Twenty preschool children equally distributed between an experimental and comparison group participated in the study. Children were given a pretest and a posttest 8 months later. Assessment of children's progress included measurement of emergent literacy knowledge, abilities and attitudes. Results show that the only item for which children in the experimental group had higher scores was pretend reading. Treatment effect is modest but promising considering the population studied. Benefits of the program are also discussed. Emergent literacy behaviors in the children in the study are compared with those reported for nondisabled students.
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