Online Module Plus eCoaching: The Effects on Special Education Teachers' Comprehension Instruction for Students with Significant Intellectual Disability

Abstract

Successful text comprehension is a complex task, requiring a variety of cognitive skills and processes that support students in making inferences, integrating information across sentences in text, monitoring understanding, and gaining knowledge about text structure. For students with significant intellectual disability (SID), text comprehension is a difficult skill to acquire because it is often associated with overall language ability. In this study, we used a multiple baseline across participants design to investigate the effects of an online module plus eCoaching on special education teachers' (SETs) use of the CROWD (Completion, Recall, Open-ended, WH, Distancing; Whitehurst et al., 2004) in the CAR (Comment, Ask, Respond; Cole et al., 2002) text comprehension strategy during literacy instruction, and the impact on students with SID listening comprehension and engagement. Results confirmed the online module plus eCoaching was effective in increasing special education teachers' knowledge and use of the CROWD in the CAR comprehension strategy, improving students' listening comprehension, and maintaining high levels of student engagement.