Using digital stories to improve writing skills of students With Autism Spectrum Disorder

Writing is an important medium to express one's ideas and needs and is an integral part of the curriculum in secondary schools. Within an accountability system, students are expected to compose narrative, persuasive, and informational essays for state and district level assessments. Students with ASD demonstrate developmental delays in language and communication skills, including verbal and written language, thus, writing is a difficult area and challenge in their learning. This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of computer-assisted instruction using digital stories to teach expressive writing to students with ASD. A total of six students with autism participated in the study. A single subject design with AB phases was used to compare the level of total words written, total words and sentences correctly written, and quality of writing. During the baseline, participants were evaluated by their free writing with assigned topics, and during the intervention, students were shown six stories with digital pictures and wrote a total of six compositions in response to each story. The results showed an increase of their total words written, total words and sentences correctly written, and improvement in their writing quality. Computer-assisted instruction using digital pictures seemed to benefit students with ASD in learning writing.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.A. Special Education

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Language, Literacy, and Special Education

Year dc:date.available

2013

Author dc:creator

• Andreevski, Michelle

Contributors dc:contributor

• Xin, Joy

• Composition (Language arts); Autism spectrum disorders; Computer-assisted instruction
• Special Education and Teaching

Repository record dc:identifier

https://rdw.rowan.edu/etd/387

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:rdw.rowan.edu:etd-1386