Communicative Effectiveness of Learning Disabled and Normally Achieving 10- to 13-Year-Old Boys

Abstract

The effectiveness of the communication skills of 25 learning disabled and 25 normally achieving boys was compared using an instructional task (i.e., having the boys teach the experimenter how to play checkers). The speaker's effectiveness in considering listener needs was evaluated based on the speaker's ability to convey essential information about the game of checkers and the speaker's response to the listener's verbal and nonverbal cues of confusion. As predicted, learning disabled boys' communication skills were found to be less effective than those of their normally achieving peers. Specifically, learning disabled boys: (a) talked more (i.e., they used more words and sentences) but said less (i.e., they provided less information) than normally achieving boys; (b) appeared more comfortable doing than describing (i.e., enhancing verbal explanations with gestures and demonstrations); (c) were less effective adapting messages to the needs of the listener than their normally achieving peers (e.g., they often repeated rather than reformulated what they said prior to the listener's expression of confusion). The communication differences between learning disabled and normally achieving boys suggest the need for special intervention and instruction.