Effects of Headsprout Early Reading Program on Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder

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Effects of HeadSprout Early Reading Program on Students With Autism Spectrum Disorder

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

Qingqing Xia, M.A.

Graduate Program in Educational Studies

The Ohio State University

2019

Dissertation Committee:

Dr. Laurice Joseph, Adviser

Dr. Moira Konrad

Dr. Sheila Alber-Morgan

Copyrighted by

Qingqing Xia

2019

Abstract

Current literature has suggested that HeadSprout Early Reading is an effective reading curriculum for typical developing students and students identified with reading risk.

However, the effectiveness of HeadSprout Early Reading has been examined on only four participants with low-incidence disabilities. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of HeadSprout Early Reading as a supplementary reading curriculum on reading skills of students with autism spectrum disorders. The researcher used a single-subject multiple probe design across three kindergartens identified with autism spectrum disorder. Participants’ acquisition of letter-sound correspondence and nonsense word fluency was measured through verbal response to presented letter/patterns of letters flash cards and The Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills Nonsense

Word Fluency. Visual analysis and descriptive statistics were used to evaluate the effectiveness of HeadSprout Early reading. Results indicated that HeadSprout Early

Reading can improve letter-sound correspondence for individuals with autism.

Dedication

Dedicated to my family

iii

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my gratitude to my research advisor, Dr. Joseph, as well as my dissertation defense committee: Dr. Alber-Morgan and Dr. Konrad. All of you have helped me in developing this research design.

Vita

2010- 2014…………………………...Bachelor of Arts in General Psychology

The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH

2014 – 2015………………………...... Master of Arts in School Psychology

The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH

2015- 2018…………………………………………Mental Health Consultant

Child Development Council of Franklin County Head Start, Columbus, OH

2018- Present………………………………………..School Psychology Intern

Dallas Independent School District, Dallas, TX

Publications

Ginns, D., Joseph, L. M., Tanaka, M., & Xia, Q. (2019). Supplemental phonological

awareness and phonics instruction for Spanish-speaking English learners:

Implications for school psychologists. Contemporary School Psychology, 23, 101-

111.

Ross, K., Hall, J., Xia, Q., & Dahlstrom, C. (2017), SASP Chapter Spotlight – The Ohio

State University. The School Psychologist, 71, 38-41.

Xia, Q., Ross, K., Philson, S., Amspaugh, L., Myrtil, M., Joseph, L., Alber-Morgan, S.

(2016). Evaluating Tier 1 Open Court Reading Foundations Skills Program on

DIBELS Benchmark performance for Children Enrolled in an Urban School

District. Ohio School Psychologists Association. (Abstract)

Amspaugh, L., Ross, K., Xia, Q., & Myrtil, M. (2016). Effects of a Tier-One Reading

Program Across Primary Grades. National Association of School Psychologists.

(Abstract)

Major Field: Educational Studies

Table of Contents

Abstract ...... ii

Dedication ...... iii

Acknowledgement ...... iv

Vita ...... v

Publications ...... vi

List Of Tables ...... xiv

List Of Figures ...... xv

Chapter 1: Introduction ...... 1

Definition Of Autism Spectrum Disorder ...... 1

Reading Skills For Students With Autism ...... 3

Prereading Skills ...... 4

Decoding...... 5

Vocabulary...... 6

Fluency ...... 6

Comprehension ...... 7

Effective Online Reading Instruction For Students With Autism ...... 9

Purpose Of The Study ...... 12

vii

Significance Of The Study ...... 12

Research Questions ...... 13

Definitions Of Terms ...... 14

Chapter 2: Literature Review ...... 15

The Importance Of Beginning Reading Skills ...... 15

The Benefits Of Phonics Instructions ...... 16

Effects Of Phonics Instruction With Intellectural Disability ...... 18

Interventions With Multiple Reading Elements ...... 19

Interventions With Prompting Procedures ...... 19

Effects Of Phonics Instruction With Autism Spectrum Disorder ...... 20

Findings From Review ...... 21

Participants ...... 21

Design ...... 22

Intervention ...... 22

Settings ...... 23

Dependent Variable ...... 23

Findings ...... 23

Importance Of Phonics Instruction For Primary Grade Children ...... 24

Types Of Systematic Phonics Reading Instruction ...... 25

Best Practice With Phoincs Instruction ...... 28 viii

Introduction to HeadSprout Early Reading ...... 30

Online Episodes ...... 31

Sprout Stories ...... 31

Flash Cards ...... 32

Systematic Review On Effects Of HeadSprout Early Reading ...... 33

Results ...... 33

Participants ...... 34

Settings ...... 35

Independent Variable ...... 37

Designs ...... 39

Dependent Measures And Intervention Effects ...... 39

Findings ...... 39

Social Validity ...... 43

Implications And Limitations ...... 44

Chapter 3: Method ...... 46

Participants ...... 46

Screening ...... 47

Bill ...... 47

Emma ...... 47

Tate ...... 48 ix

Setting ...... 48

Study Personnel ...... 48

Study Materials ...... 49

Independent Variable ...... 49

Dependent Variable...... 51

Accurate Letter-Sound Correspondence ...... 51

Accurate Letter-Sound Correspondence Per Group Lessons ...... 52

Nonsense Word Fluency ...... 53

Experimental Design ...... 53

Procedures ...... 55

Baseline Phase ...... 55

Intervention Phase ...... 56

Social Validity ...... 58

Treatment Fidelity ...... 59

On-Task Engagement ...... 59

Procedural Integrity ...... 60

InterObserver Agreement...... 60

Chapter 4: Results… ...... 62

Procedural Integrity...... 62

Intervention Procedural Integrity ...... 62 x

Data Collection Procedurla integrity ...... 62

Inter-Observer Agreement...... 62

Accurate Letter-Sound Correspondence ...... 63

DIBELS NWF ...... 63

Accurate Letter-Sound Correspondence Per Group Lessons ...... 64

On-Task Behavior ...... 64

The HeadSprout Early Reading Effectiveness ...... 65

Bill ...... 66

Baseline ...... 66

Intervention ...... 66

Tate ...... 66

Baseline ...... 67

Intervention ...... 67

Emma ...... 68

Baseline ...... 68

Intervention ...... 68

Magnitude Of Intervention Effects On Dependent Variables ...... 68

Accurate Letter-Sound Correspondence ...... 69

DIBELS NWF ...... 71

Total Correct Letter Sounds ...... 72 xi

Total Whole Words Read ...... 73

Accurate Letter-Sound Correspondence Per Group Lessons ...... 73

Social Validity ...... 74

Student Satisfaction Survey ...... 74

Teacher Satisfaction Survey ...... 75

Chapter 5: Discussion ...... 79

Is the implementation of the first 23 online episodes from the Headsprout Early

Reading curriculum effective for helping a sample of students with autism Spectrum

Disorder acquire letter-sound correspondence?...... 79

Functional Relationship ...... 79

Accurate Letter-Sound Correspondence...... 80

Accurate Letter-Sound Correspondence Per Group Lessons...... 82

Is the implementation of the first 23 online episodes from the Headsprout Early

Reading curriculum effective for helping a sample of students with autism Spectrum

Disorder acquire nonsense word fluency?...... 83

Functional Relationship ...... 83

Functional Relationship ...... 84

Is Headsprout Early Reading curriculum a socially valid intervention perceived by

teachers for helping a sample of students gain basic reading skills? ...... 85

xii

Is Headsprout Early Reading curriculum a socially valid intervention perceived by

students for helping a sample of students gain basic reading skills? ...... 87

Limitations And Suggestions For Future Research ...... 88

Implications For Practice...... 91

Summary ...... 93

References ...... 95

Appendix-A: Elements Taught Across Headsprout Early Reading Episodes ...... 113

Appendix-B: Headsprout Placement Test ...... 114

Appendix-C: Dissertation Recruitment Letter ...... 117

Appendix-D: Parental Permission ...... 118

Appendix-E: Letter-Sound Correspondence Flash Cards ...... 121

Appendix-F: Phonemes and Phonetic Elements for Each Group Episode ...... 126

Appendix-G: The DIBELS NWF Grade K Administration Sheet ...... 127

Appendix-H: Teacher Satisfaction Questionnaire ...... 128

Appendix-I: Student Satisfaction Survey ...... 130

Appendix-J: On-Task Behavior Momentary Time Sampling ...... 132

Appendix-K: HeadSprout Lesson Implementation Fidelity Checklist ...... 133

Appendix L: Data Collection Fidelity Checklist ...... 134

xiii

List of Tables

Table 1. Severity of Autism Spectrum Disorder……………………………...... 2

Table 2. Demographic Information across Studies……………………………...18

Table 3. Search Terms for Systematic Review……………..…………………...21

Table 4. Systematic Review on HeadSprout Early Reading…………………….35

Table 5. Participants On-Task Behavior………………………………………...65

Table 6. Tate’s Performance on Letter-Sound Correspondence per Group Lesson..68

Table 7. Participants’ Performance on Accurate Letter-Sound Correspondences Per

Group Lesson…………………………………………….………………………74

Table 8. Student Satisfaction Survey Results……………………………….…...75

Table 9. Teacher Satisfaction Questionnaire Results……………………………76

xiv

List of Figures

Figure 1. The Results of HeadSprout on Letter- Sound Correspondence….…..71

Figure 2. The Results of HeadSprout on DIBELS NWF Total Correct Letter

Sounds…………………………………………………………………………..73

Figure 1. Results of Prompt Fading a Self-Questioning Strategy ...... 77

Chapter 1: Introduction

Promoting early reading skills remains to be one of the most important academic goals. Not only is early reading skill a critical predictor of future word recognition, reading fluency, and comprehension skills, a strong early literacy foundation is also

positively associated with second language acquisition and academic self-concept

(Chapman, Tunmer, & Prochnow, 2000; Muter, Hulme, Snowling, & Stevenson, 2004).

However, identifying and implementing effective early reading curriculum with the

consideration of individual student’s needs has always been a challenge, especially for

students with disabilities.

The legislation requires that students with disabilities be included in mainstream

education as appropriate as possible; however, facilitating learning and participation of students with disabilities in inclusion setting has been complex and poorly understood. A qualitative study (Humphrey & Lewis, 2008) on 20 students with autism and their teachers illustrated the difficulties that both teachers and students with autism have faced in a mainstream classroom. The majority of student participants connected their disabilities and even themselves with negative connotations (e.g., “retarded” and “bad brain”). In addition, these students with autism have many unaddressed learning and social needs in the mainstream classroom. It is imperative that educators understand the cognitive abilities of individuals with autism, as well as selection of appropriate instructions for these individuals.

Definition of Autism Spectrum Disorder

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder (DSM-5) categorized autism spectrum disorder with two defining diagnostic criteria: 1) Persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction across various settings, such as deficits in social-emotional reciprocity, deficits in nonverbal communication, and/or deficits in developing, maintaining and understanding relationship; and 2) restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities as manifested in at least two of the following:

1) stereotyped or repetitive motor movements, use of objects, or speech; 2) insistence on sameness, inflexibility adherence to routines, or ritualized patterns or verbal/nonverbal behavior; 3) highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus; and

4) hyper- or hypo-reactivity to sensory input or usual interests in sensory aspects of the environment. Not only the autism spectrum disorder includes various symptoms, the severity of the major symptoms also varies extremely (See Table 1 for a description of severity levels).

Table 1 Severity of Autism Spectrum Disorder

Severity Social Communication Restricted, Repetitive Behaviors Level 3 Severe deficits in verbal and Inflexibility of behavior, extreme nonverbal social communication difficulty coping with change, or other causing severe impairments in restricted/repetitive behaviors functioning, very limited initiation markedly interferes with functioning in of social interactions and minimal all areas. Great distress/difficulty response to others. changing focus or action. Level 2 Marked deficits in verbal and Inflexibility of behavior, difficulty nonverbal social communication coping with change, or other skills, social impairment apparent restricted/repetitive behavior appears with support, limited initiation of frequently enough to be obvious to the social interactions, and reduced or casual observer and interfere with abnormal response to others. functioning in a variety of contexts. Level 1 Without support, deficits in social Inflexibility of behavior causes communication cause noticeable significant interference with impairments.

functioning in one or more contexts. Difficulty switching between activities. Adapted from DSM-5 Diagnostic Criteria

The Ohio Department of Education defines autism as a “developmental disability significantly affecting verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction, generally evident before age 3 that adversely affects a child’s educational performance”

(Ohio Department of Education, 2007). The criteria also include symptoms such as repetitive activities and stereotyped movement, resistance to change in environment or daily routine, and unusual reaction to sensory stimulants. Although a medical diagnosis of autism does not automatically qualify students for special education services under the term of autism, and an educational diagnosis of autism does not necessary mean that students meet the clinical criteria of autism, the educational diagnosis is rather consistent with the medical diagnosis in terms of defining symptoms, with one major distinction: whether or not a student's disability negatively impacts educational performance.

In short, autism spectrum disorder is a neurodevelopmental syndrome that is defined by deficits in social interaction and language skills with unusual stereotypical behavioral patterns (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). For students with autism, they usually struggle with regulating emotions and controlling behaviors in the classroom. In addition, they also under-achieve academically than typical developing peers (Ashburner, Ziviani, & Rodger, 2010).

Reading Skills for Students with Autism

Reading is one of the most fundamental skills among academic skills. Many students with autism have difficulty acquiring language and reading skills, although a diagnosis of autism does not necessary indicate any deficit in reading skills is present.

Asberg, Kopp, Berg-Kelly, and Gillberg (2009) compared a variety of reading skills (i.e.,

comprehension, word decoding and spelling) in girls with autism, Attention-

Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and typical development to investigate if autism

or ADHD symptomatology contributes to the deficits in their reading skills. The results did not yield any significant difference in reading skills (decoding, spelling, and comprehension) between girls with autism and ADHD or typical development, suggesting that some individuals with autism exhibit an average reading skill profile

comparing to their typical developing peers.

Compared to typical developing peers, students with autism in general demonstrated a reading profile of average to strong decoding skills and poor to average comprehension skill; however, the heterogeneity of reading skills among students with

autism is evident (Davidson & Weisme, 2014; Snowling & Frith, 1986).

Prereading Skills. Davidson and Weisme’s (2014) longitudinal study developed

a number of early reading profiles through examination of reading skills in 101 children

with autism. The results suggested that by the age of 5, students with autism

demonstrated overall emergent literacy skills similar to population norm. In addition,

their emergent literacy skills were positively correlated with nonverbal cognition, social-

economics-status, social ability, and receptive and expressive language skills, but

negatively correlated with severity of autism. Further examination on the early literacy

skills among students with autism suggested more than half of the participants exhibited a

higher alphabet performance compared to performance on conventions and meaning

performance.

Decoding. Although researchers found that students with autism demonstrated verage to below average performance in phonemic awareness compared to typical- developing peers, there are inconsistent viewpoints regarding the decoding skills in students with autism (Gabig, 2010; Huemer & Mann, 2010). A large amount of literature supports two different viewpoints in terms of the phonics skills among students with autism. The first viewpoint suggests that many students with autism show a usual early development of alphabetic letters and demonstrate strong decoding skills despite a lack of formal instruction, which is categorized as hyperlexia (Nation, 1999). These high- functioning individuals with autism are showing strengths in word identification and reading fluency but are struggling with comprehending what they are reading. Another viewpoint suggests that the majority of children with autism demonstrate an average ability in word reading, decoding, and spelling (Minshew, Goldstein, Taylor, & Siegel,

1994). Although two viewpoints hold different opinions about the literacy skills of children with autism, both suggest that children with autism possess the underlying cognitive ability to develop phonics (Gabig, 2010).

A number of studies have suggested that some individuals with autism demonstrated a reading profiles characterized by higher decoding skills and lower reading comprehension (Snowling & Frith, 1986). In certain extreme cases, the combination of good decoding with poor comprehension refers to the characteristics of hyperlexia (Healey, 1982). Some individuals with autism have less impaired cognitive and language abilities unlike children with low functioning autism. These high- functioning individuals with autism usually demonstrate strengths in word identification and reading fluency, however, they are struggling with gaining meaning from text. High-

functioning students with autism performed somewhat better on reading comprehension tasks (O’Connor & Klein, 2004).

Vocabulary. Considering many individuals with autism have impaired social cognition ability, previous studies assumed that individuals with autism may development vocabularies with implication or abstract concepts differently than their typical-developing peers (Hobson & Lee, 1989; Williams, 1993). To verify this assumption, a descriptive study was conducted to explore the vocabulary profile within individuals with autism (Perkins, Dobbinson, Boucher, Bol, & Bloom, 2006). When examining the vocabulary use in adults with autism, there was no support in their anomalous use of artifact terms, yet these adults tend to make more vocabulary errors in conversations comparing to adults without autism. In addition, prelinguistic skills (i.e., comment and motor imitations; McDuffie, Yoder, & Stone, 2005), and nonverbal communication skills (i.e., the presentence of verbal imitation, pretend play skills, and the number of hand gesture for joint attention; Smith, Mirenda, & Zaidman-Zait, 2007) exhibited in youths with autism were positively associated with future vocabulary production.

Fluency. Oral reading fluency is an important indicator of reading comprehension skills (Klauda & Guthrie, 2008). However, studies have suggested that even when reading fluency is comparable to that of typical developing peers, students with autism tend to exhibit deficits in comprehension skills (Minshew, Goldstein, & Siegel, 1994).

In comparing reading skills in students with autism and students with dyslexia, students with autism performed significantly better on Gray Oral Reading Test Rate

(Wiedernolt, 1991). Newman et al. (2007) compared the performance of students with

autism without dyslexia, students with autism with dyslexia and their typical developing peers in the Reading Fluency measure from the Woodcock–Johnson Tests of

Achievement-III (Woodcock, McGrew, & Mather, 2001) and Rapid Naming measure from the Comprehensive Tests of Phonological Processing (Wagner, Torgeson, &

Rashotte, 1999). Findings revealed there was no significant difference in participants’ performance on Rapid Naming. However, the results from Reading Fluency suggested that typical developing peers read just as fast as students with autism with dyslexia, and significantly faster than students with autism without dyslexia (Newman et al, 2007).

Minshew, Goldstein, and Siegel (1994) compared oral language fluency and comprehension between 62 students with high-functioning autism and their typical developing peers through the Token Test (Boller & Vignolo, 1966), the Controlled Oral

Word Association (Benton & Hamsher, 1976), and the Animal Naming (Goodglass &

Kaplan, 1972). The lack of significant difference between two groups’ reading performance have indicated that students with autism were able to name objects just as fluently as their typical developing peers. However, further analysis suggested a deficit in comprehension and the lack of positive correlation between oral language fluency and comprehension were present for students with autism.

Comprehension. Brown, Oram-Cardy, and Johnson (2013) conducted a meta- analysis of 36 studies comparing reading comprehension skills of students with autism and their typical developing peers. The meta-analysis revealed an overall significant difference in reading comprehension performance between students with autism spectrum disorder and typical developing peers with a large effect size. Students with autism performed significantly lower on reading comprehension measures than students without

disabilities. When analyzing comprehension skill within students with autism, their

comprehension skills ranged between -2.2 standard deviations to 0.7 standard deviation

comparing to the norm sample, suggesting the overall population of student with autism

demonstrated a low to average reading comprehension skills.

The meta-analysis (Brown, Oram-Cardy, & Johnson, 2013) also found that both decoding skills and semantic knowledge significantly positively predicted reading comprehension for students with autism. Ricketts, Jones, Happe, and Charman (2013)

have attempted to investigate the effects of other factors (i.e., word recognition, oral

language comprehension, social skills and social cognition) on reading comprehension

performance of students with autism. One hundred adolescents with autism of varying

cognitive ability participated in the study. Both word recognition and oral language

comprehension were significant predictors of reading comprehension. The severity of

social skills impairment also significantly predicted reading comprehension after

accounting for the variance explained by word recognition and oral comprehension.

Williamson, Carnahan, and Jacob (2012) constructed three comprehension

profiles when examining the reading abilities among 88 students with high-functioning

autism: text bound, strategic, and imaginative. Individuals with autism who exhibited text

bound comprehension tended to focus on connecting meaning to the text without

interpretation, therefore performing better on answering explicit than implicit questions.

However, these individuals’ answers to questions tended to be brief. The individuals with

autism who fitted into the strategic profile tended to ask many questions when reading the

passage, and they could answer both explicit and implicit questions regardless of text features and background knowledge. However, unlike typically developing peers, these

individuals still struggle with questions in relation to prediction. Students with autism

who fit into the imaginative profile performed the best when visual representations were

present. However, they were the least vocal and preferred to relate to text through

pictures or written words, rather than oral communication.

Effective Online Reading Instruction for Students with Autism

Computer-assisted instruction for reading skills has been increasingly implemented in school to supplement conventional teaching instruction. Many studies have suggested the benefits of computer-based reading instruction (Kulik & Kulik, 1991).

Besides promoting positive reading outcomes, computer-based instructions promote easy access for students, provide constant feedback, and reduce instructional time for teachers

(Coyner & McCann, 2004; Deal III, 2002). With a wealth of computer-based instruction on the market, few have been examined on their effects in improving reading skills for students with autism.

Heimann, Nelson, Tjus, and Gillberg (1995) implemented an interactive reading computer program, Alpha, and compared reading performance among students with autism, students with multiple disabilities, and their typical developing peers. Alpha is a child-initiated language-learning program that consists 112 lessons. Student’s pre and posttest performance across three reading measures have suggested that all three groups of participants demonstrated significant gains on vocabulary, word reading, and phonological awareness, especially for students with autism and students with multiple disabilities. Specifically, children with autism increased their word level and sentence level reading performance by 11%.

DeltaMessage (Tjus, Heimann, & Nelson, 1998) was developed on the successful basis of Alpha. Tjus, Heimann, and Nelson (1998) implemented DeltaMessage as supplemental instruction to participants’ daily reading and language instruction. Thirteen participants with autism were assigned to either a condition in which they received reading instruction through DeltaMessage or to a condition which they did not receive reading instruction through DeltaMessage. Comparing two groups of participants’ performances on word and sentence reading accuracy and phonological awareness, participants in the DeltaMessage condition made significantly more gains on both variables than the participants in the control condition. The study also analyzed the amount of time students took to read text. The results suggested that all participants in the

DeltaMessage condition spent significantly less time reading the text than participants in the control condition, suggesting the effectiveness of DeltaMessage in improving reading fluency for students with autism.

A number of computer-assisted instruction studies have demonstrated success on word identification for students with autism. Yaw et al. (2011) examined the effects of a computer-based sight word reading intervention (PowerPoint) on reading accuracy for a

13-year-old participant with autism. With the span of 16 school days, this student

demonstrated significant improvement in word reading accuracy, with no overlapping

data points between baseline and intervention phases across all three sets of sight word.

This participant maintained his performance when introduced to the next set of sight

words. Similar to the computer-based sight word intervention designed by Yaw et al.

(2011), Coleman-Martin, Heller, Cihak, and Irvine (2005) used PowerPoint to present

sight words to three participants: one with autism, one with cerebral palsy, and one with

brain injury. The study compared students’ word identification skills under three

conditions: (a) teachers only, (b) teacher with PowerPoint, and (c) PowerPoint only. The

results suggested that all three participants were able to acquire word identification skills.

However, the participants met criterion level the quickest under the PowerPoint only

condition.

Alpha, BeltaMessage, and the two computer-based instructions on PowerPoint have proven to be effective for helping students with autism improve their basic reading skills (Coleman-Martin, Heller, Cihak, & Irvine, 2005; Heimann, Nelson, Tjus, &

Gillberg, 1995; Tjus, Heimann, & Nelson, 1998; Yaw et al., 2011). Taken together, these studies included a total of 26 participants with autism and demonstrated promising results on phonic skills and word recognition. However, considering the limited number of participants and the limited number of studies examining the effects of computer-based reading instructions, future studies investigating the effects of computer-based instructions programs for students with autism are needed.

The HeadSprout Early Reading program is an online literacy curriculum targeting the needs of students from kindergarten through 2nd grade. The Headsprout Early

Reading have been effective for students with and without disabilities in improving basic reading skills, such as letter-sound correspondence, letter identification, and word identification skills (Huffstetter, King, Onwuegbuzie, Schneider, & Powell-Smith, 2010;

Kreskey & Truscott, 2016; Storey, McDowell, & Leslie, 2017; Tyler, Hughes, Beverley,

& Hastings, 2014). In addition, five studies supported the effectiveness of Headsprout

Early Reading on reading accuracy and fluency (Clarfied & Stoner, 2005; Pindiprolu &

Forbush, 2008; Storey, McDowell, & Leslie, 2017; Tyler, Hughes, Beverley, & Hasting,

2014; Whitcomb, Bass, & Luiselli, 2011)

Through a systematic research (see Chapter 2), only two studies that examined the effectiveness of Headsprout Early Reading included participants with low-incidence disabilities (Clarfield & Stoner, 2005; Whitcomb, Bass, & Luiselli, 2011). In those two studies, a total number of four participants with low-incidence disabilities (i.e., ADHD

and autism) were included. Clearly, more studies are needed on population with

disabilities to draw conclusions about this program’s effectiveness.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of HeadSprout Early Reading

on students with autism spectrum disorder. This study aimed to explore whether

kindergarteners with autism can improve their basic reading skills while receiving

HeadSprout Early Reading instruction as a supplementary reading instruction.

Furthermore, this study aimed to examine if a functional relationship between the

implementation of HeadSprout Early Reading and acquisition of letter-sound

correspondence exist on a sample of kindergartens with autism. Finally, this study aimed

to evaluate the social validity of the HeadSprout Early Reading program.

Significance of the Study

This study makes an important contribution to the literature by evaluating the

effectiveness of HeadSprout Early Reading on improving basic reading skills in kindergartens with autism spectrum disorder. As previously stated, there is a limited number of studies on the effects of computer-based instructions on students with autism.

In addition, there is a limited amount of literature on the effects of Headsprout Early

Reading. Through a systematic literature, eight studies have been found to evaluate the

effects of Headsprout Early Reading on students with a total number of 374 participants.

Among these participants, only one student was identified with autism spectrum disorder,

four are identified with Intellectual or Developmental Disabilities (IDD), and three are

identified with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The findings of this

study contribute to the existing literature by examining the effects of Headsprout Early

Reading with students with autism. In addition, the results of this study guide practitioners to select and implement effective early reading instructions to accommodate the needs of students with autism.

Research Questions

The following questions guided this study:

Research question 1: Is the implementation of the first 23 online episodes from the Headsprout Early Reading curriculum effective for helping a sample of students with autism Spectrum Disorder acquire letter-sound correspondence?

Research question 2: Is the implementation of the first 23 online episodes from the Headsprout Early Reading curriculum effective for helping a sample of students with autism Spectrum Disorder acquire nonsense word fluency?

Research question 3: Is Headsprout Early Reading curriculum a socially valid

intervention perceived by teachers for helping a sample of students gain basic reading skills?

Research question 4: Is Headsprout Early Reading curriculum a socially valid intervention perceived by students for helping a sample of students gain basic reading skills?

Definitions of Terms

Prereading Skills. Prereading skills refers to the sets of skills that are precursors

to learning to read, such as phonological awareness, phonological memory, rapid

automatic naming, and print concepts (Joseph, 2015).

Phonemic Awareness. Phonemic awareness is one of the most important skills of phonological awareness (Joseph, 2015). Phonemic awareness refers to the ability to detect and manipulate the smallest units of a spoken language (Evans & Shaw, 2008).

Computer-Based Instruction. Computer-based instruction refers to any learning instruction or curriculum that students and/or teachers can access through computers.

Letter-Sound Correspondence. Letter-sound correspondence refers to the

knowledge of the sounds represented by the letter and the letters used to represent the

sound.

Social Validity. The purpose of social validity is to ensure the selection of

socially important goals, development of socially acceptable procedures and attainment

of socially important effects (Fawcett, 1991)

Chapter 2: Literature Review

The Importance of Beginning Reading Skills

Reading skills are critical for students’ academic success in school, and fundamental for many other essential life skills contributing to career development, leisure quality, and health condition (Ritchie & Bates, 2013; Safeer & Keenan, 2005).

Children, who read more, can obtain more information and knowledge in many domains

(Cunningham & Stanovich, 1998; Morrison, Smith, & Dow-Ehrensberger, 1995).

Students who have struggled with fundamental reading skills often experience academic challenges in the future. For instance, a longitudinal study tracked the academic progress of nearly 4,000 students suggested that the students who failed to reach reading proficiency by third grade were four times more likely to drop out of school before a diploma (Hernandez, 2011). Without appropriate and on-time reading intervention support, students with poor basic reading skills usually fall behind their peers in reading as well as other academic subjects (Chall, Jacob, & Baldwin, 1990).

Early reading skills are foundations for future, more complicated reading skills, such as word identification, comprehension, and writing. A longitudinal study examined the relationship between foundational reading skills (i.e., phonological skills, letter knowledge, grammatical skills, and vocabulary) and future word recognition as well as reading comprehension performance (Muter, Hulme, Snowling, & Stevenson, 2004). This

2-year longitudinal study followed a group of 90 youths at the age of 4. The results suggested that future word recognition was predicted by phoneme sensitivity and letter knowledge, and future reading comprehension was predicted by word recognition, vocabulary and grammatically skills. 15

Beginning reading skills refer to the skills that help youth connect print with

spoken language. These skills include alphabetic principle, phonological decoding and

orthographic knowledge (Joseph, 2015). Alphabetic principle refers to the understanding

that letters that comprise our printed language represent individual sounds. Youth’s

ability to decode novel sequences, such as nonsense words (e.g., sut), is an indicator of

the alphabetic principle (Byrne, 2005).

Phonological decoding refers to the ability to translate the printed word back to its

oral representation (de Jong, Bitter, van Setten, & Marinus, 2009). Orthographic

knowledge is storing and accessing words from memory and writing them using

conventions and rules of written language (Apel, 2011).

The Benefits of Phonics Instructions

Phonics refers to the method of teaching young readers how to connect sounds of spoken language with letters or groups of letters. Phonics instruction supports several reading skills, such as decoding, comprehension, word identification and reading fluency

(National Reading Panel, 2000). In addition, phonics instruction helps students learn how to write, as writing is supported by phonemic segmentation skills, knowledge of common

spelling patterns and letter-sound correspondence (Griffith, Klesius, & Kromrey, 1992).

Phonics is an effective beginning reading instruction that has been supported in many studies; however, it is not the only reading instructional method available for the mainstream classroom (National Reading Panel, 2000). For example, other two popular beginning reading instructions are the whole-language program, which emphasizes on meaning-based reading and writing exercises, and the basal reading program, which teaches reading through a complete set of reading material in sequence. In order to

compare the effectiveness of phonics instruction with other reading instruction methods, the National Reading Panel (2000) compiled findings from 33 studies. A moderate effect size was found for phonics instruction. A significant difference was detected when comparing phonics instruction programs with non-phonics instruction programs. These findings supported that on average phonics instruction produced a moderate positive effect on students’ basic reading skills and yielded better reading outcomes than alternative reading instruction approaches.

Systematic phonics instruction refers to a teaching method that focuses on teaching reading and spelling through acquisition of letter-sound correspondences, with all the major letter-sound correspondences introduced in a clearly defined sequence (Ehri,

2003; National Reading Panel, 2000). Systematic phonics instruction is more effective than nonsystematic phonics instructions in improving students’ phonemic awareness, spelling, and reading performance (de Graaff, Bosman, Hasselman, & Verhoeven, 2009).

Phonics instruction teaches students to apply alphabetic principle to read novel words. The effectiveness of phonics instruction is evident in students’ ability to decode both real words and nonsense words. In addition, phonics instruction also promotes greater gains in students’ comprehension ability compared to other reading instruction

(National Reading Panel, 2000). This growth in comprehension skills is even more predominant in younger students and students with disabilities (National Reading Panel,

2000).

The effectiveness of phonics instructions has been supported across various types of populations. Not just typical developing students, students identified with an intellectual disability (ID), autism spectrum disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity

disorder (ADHD), and English as second language learners all were able to benefit from phonics instructions. The following studies are analyzed to examine the effects of phonics instruction on individuals with intellectual disability and autism.

Effects of Phonics Instruction with Intellectual Disability

Hill (2016) conducted a systematic review of effective phonics reading intervention for students with intellectual disability (ID). This literature review updated the prior review by Joseph and Seery (2004), and identified 11 studies examining the effectiveness of reading intervention with participants identified with ID. All 11 studies demonstrated successful reading outcome from receiving phonics-based reading instructions. Two hundred and forty participants with ID were included in these 11 studies. The demographic information included in these 11 studies are organized and displayed in Table 2. Hill (2016) organized the interventions implemented in these studies into two categories: comprehensive reading curricula that include phonics instruction, or phonics interventions that consist of evidence-based response-prompting procedures.

Table 2

Demographic Information Across Studies Studies Total IQ Score Grade/age Current Education Participants Location Allor et al 59 40-69 1st – 4th grade Urban public schools (2010) and one private school Allor et al 28 40 - 55 1st – 4th grade Elementary public (2010) schools Bradford et al. 3 46-55 12-15 years Public schools (2006) old Browder et al. 93 Average of K – 5th grade Public schools (2012) 42 Cohen et al. 5 40-61 9-14 years old Public middle schools (2008)

Conners et al. 20 Average of 7 – 12 years Public middle schools (2006) 53 old Finnegan, E. 52 Average of Average of 8.6 Public schools G. (2012) 55.96 years old Flores et al. 6 42 - 63 8 -13 Public elementary (2004) schools Fredrick et al. 5 40 - 55 7- 14 years old Public schools (2013) Joseph, L. M. 3 40 - 55 9 – 10 years Public schools (2002 old Waugh et al. 3 40-53 9-11 years old Not in school (2009)

Inventions with multiple reading elements. Six out of the 11 studies implemented a comprehensive reading curriculum. Two studies (Bradford, Shippen,

Alberto, Houchins, & Flores, 2006; Flores, Shippen, Alberto, & Crowe, 2004) evaluated the effectiveness of Corrective Reading Program Decoding A (Engelmann, Carniene, &

Johnson, 1998), and one study (Conners et al., 2006) evaluated the effectiveness of

Edmark (Austin & Boekman, 1990) reading program. Browder, Ahlgrim-Delzell,

Flowers, and Baker (2012) compared the effects of a multiple elementary literacy curriculum, Early Literacy Skills Builder (Browder, Gibbs, Ahlgrim-Delzell, Courtade, &

Lee, 2007) with business-as-usual reading instruction.

Two studies (Allor, Mathes, Roberts, Cheatham, & Champlin, 2010; Allor,

Mathes, Roberts, Jones, & Champlin, 2010) examined the effects of a researcher- developed systematic explicit reading instruction through direct instruction. This intervention instruction program targets print awareness, phonological and phonemic awareness, oral language, letter knowledge, word recognition, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension.

Inventions with Prompting Procedures. Three studies incorporated 19

simultaneous prompting as part of an intervention procedure (Cohen, Heller, Alberto, &

Fredrick., 2008; Frederick, Davis, Alberto, & Waugh, 2013; Joseph, 2002). Simultaneous prompting involved controlling prompt (i.e., a prompt that ensures correct responses from students) and instructional cue. While Frederick et al. (2013) implemented a phonics instruction from a researcher-developed integrated literacy curriculum (Alberto &

Fredrick, 2007) in conjunction with simultaneous prompting, Cohen et al., (2008) and

Waugh, Fredrick, and Alberto (2009) examined simultaneous prompting on acquisition of letter-sound correspondence and sound blending skills.

Joseph (2002) examined the use of a word box as a 20-minute daily instruction on three participants with mild intellectual disabilities. This intervention provides students with three colored chips being placed under a section of the divided rectangle. As the instructor articulated the sounds of a word, the student placed the chips corresponding to the drawn rectangle. Finally, the student was asked to articulate the sounds as placing chips in the respective box.

All 11 studies included in this systematic review reported varying degrees of positive reading outcomes with students with ID. On average, the studies that implemented an intervention for the most prolonged period yielded the best outcome.

Effects of Phonics Instruction with Autism Spectrum Disorder

A systematic review was conducted to examine the studies implementing phonics instructions with students with autism spectrum disorder. Data-based searches were conducted using Education Research Complete, ERIC, PsycINFO, and Academic

Research Complete (from 2000 to 2018) using all combinations of research terms from the set A and set B (See Table 3).

Table 3 Search Terms for Systematic Review on Phonics Instructions for Autism Set A Set B Phonics Autism Phonics instruction Autism spectrum disorder Phonics strategy Autistic

To be included in the review, the studies had to meet the following criteria: (a) the study had to employ an experimental/quasi-experimental or a single subject design; (b) the independent variable had to include explicit systematic phonics instruction programs;

(c) the dependent variable had to include a measure of any academic or classroom social behavior in students; (d) the article must be published in a peer-reviewed journal between

2000 to 2018; (e) the participants must identify population with autism spectrum disorder; (f) study had to be published in English.

Findings from Review

Eight studies were identified and included in this systematic review. The following provides a description of the findings from the review pertaining to participants, research design, phonics intervention, setting, dependent variable, and a summary of outcomes of the studies.

Participants. A total number of 175 participants was included in these eight studies. Sixty-seven of them were identified with autism spectrum disorder. Five studies provided gender identities on participants with autism spectrum disorder: two female and

16 male participants with autism (Ahlgrim-Delzell, Browder, & Wood, 2014; Ainsworth,

Evmenova, Behrmann, & Jerome, 2016; Tzanakaki et al., 2013; Nopprapun & Holloway,

2014; O’Brien, Mc Tiernan, & Holloway, 2018). These five studies also provided

information on the age for participants with autism. The age of these participants ranged

from three to 16 years old. In addition, four participants with autism were also identified

with a mild intellectual disability, and one with moderate intellectual disability. All

participant with autism were enrolled in either an elementary or middle school.

Design. Three studies utilized an experimental design, one study utilized an

alternating-treatment design, three studies utilized a multiple-baseline across

participants/groups of participants, and one study utilized a multiple-probe across

stimulus sets.

Intervention. Although two studies (Nopprapun & Holloway, 2014; O’Brien, Mc

Tiernan, & Holloway, 2018) examined specific intervention methods to teach phonics,

the remaining six investigated the effects of a complete or part of reading curriculum on

students with autism.

Nopprapun and Holloway (2014) used a fluency-based method to teach letter-

sound correspondences for four participants with autism, and the results suggested

promising results in learning and maintaining the letter-sound correspondence. Inspired by their study, O’Brien, Mc Tiernan, and Holloway (2018) compared a fluency-based

(i.e., fluency training) and an accuracy-based (discrete trial instruction) teaching method for phonics instruction for students with autism. The results suggested that fluency-based phonics instruction was more effective than accuracy-based, although both yielded positive outcomes in letter-sound correspondence.

The remaining six studies that implemented a complete or a part of reading curricula, supporting the effectiveness of Early Literacy Skills Builder (Browder, Gibbs,

Ahlgrim-Delzell, Courtade, & Lee, 2007), Mimoheadsprout, Accessible Literacy

Learning Curriculum (Light & McNaughon, 2010), and GoTalk Phonics Curriculum

(Ahlgrim-Delzell, Browder, & Wood, 2014).

Settings. Six studies implemented the intervention in an individual setting, while

two studies implemented the treatment classroom-wide. Three studies were conducted in

participants’ reading instruction classroom, and five were conducted in a separate, private

room within participants’ school buildings. Out of the eight studies, three trained general

education and/or special education staff to implement phonics instructions, two studies

were implemented directly by the experimenters, and the remaining studies did not

provide such information.

Dependent variable. Three studies used the number of accurate letter-sound

correspondences produced by participants as a dependent measurement. Two studies used

the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) to monitor the growth in

beginning reading skills. Two studies used researcher-based measurements in phoneme identification, word identification, and word-picture matching. One study used the

Nonverbal Literacy Assessment and Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test – III. One study used the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test – III, The Expressive Vocabulary Test, The

Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery-Revised, The Comprehensive Test of

Phonological Processing, and Test of Word Reading Efficiency.

Findings. Seven out of the eight studies provided either percentage of nonoverlapping data (PND) or Cohen’s d as a measurement of the magnitude of the intervention effect. PND that is higher than 70% is an indicator of an effective program

(Scruggs & Mastropieri, 2001). According to Cohen’s d scale, a large effect is 0.8 or

greater, a moderate effect is between 0.5 and 0.7, and a small effect is between 0.2 and

0.4 (Cohen, 1988). All the PND provided by these studies ranged from 54% to 100%,

with an average of 82.5%. All the Cohen’ d provided in these studies ranged from 0.12 to

1, with an average of 0.61. On average, these studies suggested a moderate to large effects on phonics instruction for students with autism.

Importance of Phonics Instruction for Primary Grade Children

Although phonics instruction facilitates reading development in both young and old readers, studies have suggested that an early implementation of phonics intervention yielded better reading outcomes. Ehri (2003) conducted a meta-analysis of the studies on systematic phonics instructions included in the National Reading Panel (2000). The results suggested that systematic phonics instructions were effective across kindergarten through 6th grade. However, the statistical analysis suggested that the effect size was significantly higher when the instruction was implemented during kindergarten (d=0.56)

to 1st grade (d=0.54) comparing to 2nd through 6th grade (d=0.27), indicating that the most

significant impact of phonics instruction occurred when it was introduced early primary

grades.

With the immediate academic benefits suggested by previous studies, Xue and

Meisels (2004) measured the long-term effects on students’ learning when phonics

instruction was implemented in kindergarten. This study examined the academic

achievement growth on a nationally representative sample of 13609 kindergarten

students. The study suggested that students’ cognitive test scores and teacher rating of

children’s achievement were significantly higher when language arts and phonics

instruction were introduced in kindergarten.

Not only has phonics instruction helped students with academic or developmental

deficits but has also has reduced the achievement gap (Blachman, Ball, Black, & Tangel,

1994). A meta-analysis over 22 studies (Jeynes, 2008) has suggested a moderate

relationship between phonics instructions and academic achievement in students from

diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds who attended urban elementary schools. Phonics

instructions promote an overall reading skill in students of diverse ethnic and racial

backgrounds and close the achievement gap.

It is vital to introduce phonics instruction in a manner that is developmentally

appropriate and begins with basic reading skills when teaching kindergarten students.

These pre-reading skills are usually taught to children before the age of seven.

Development of oral language plays a critical role in children’s reading development

(Catts, Fey, Tomblin, & Zhang, 2002).

Types of Systematic Phonics Reading Instruction

Stahl, Duffy-Hester, and Stahl (1998) summarized several popular phonics-based

instructional approaches, analytic, linguistic, synthetic, spelling-based, analogy-based,

and embedded phonics approach.

Analytic phonics approach involves teaching a word that students already knew and having that student segmenting the word into smaller component parts. A teacher would pick a word in the student’s pre-existing vocabulary bank, such as “bed.” Then the teacher would begin the analytic lesion by breaking the word bed into /b/, /e/, and /d/ sound. However, this type of reading instruction may be challenging for educators to

follow to due lack of a clear manuscript to follow (Durkin, 1988).

Linguistic phonics approach is based on the linguistic theory that one would struggle to pronounce certain consonants in isolation (Bloomfield & Barnhart, 1961).

Instead of teaching each letter-sound correspondence, the linguistic phonics approach suggests that students should be introduced with words in patterns due to their limited ability to sound specific phoneme out.

Synthetic phonics approach emphasizes teaching students to translate text into sound, and then to blend the sounds to form decodable words. For example, a teacher could write the letter “A” on the whiteboard and teach students the sounds letter “A” makes. Later, the teacher writes the word hat and then points to the letters from left to right while blending the sounds. Two popular reading programs that utilized synthetic phonics are Orton-Gillingham method and Direct Instruction approach (Englemann &

Bruner, 1969)

Orton-Gillingham method reading instructions begins with direct teaching of individual letters matching with sounds through a VAKT model (i.e., visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile). The typical procedure of this approach usually consists of tracing letter while naming and sounding it out, blending letters to read words and short phrases, and reading passages that only contain pre-taught sounds. Based on Orton-Gillingbam method, Slingerland approach (Lovitt & DeMier, 1984), Spaulding approach (Spaulding

& Spaulding, 1962), Recipe for Reading (Traub, 1977), and Alphabetic Phonics (Ogden,

Hindman, & Turner, 1989) are developed.

Direct Instruction method is based on the behavioral analysis of decoding

(Kameenui, Simmons, Chard, & Dickson, 1997). Teachers teach letter sounds through highly structured instruction in conjunction with cuing and reinforcement. Adams and

Engelmann’s (1996) study on the effectiveness of Direct Instruction suggested a

substantial amount of growth on students’ comprehension and reading performance, with

a large effect size.

The spelling-based approach is based on teaching principles of spelling. Three

approaches have been further developed under the spelling-based approach: Word Study,

Making Words, and Meta-Phonics. Word Study is based on the development of

orthographic knowledge in students (Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, & Johnston, 1996). In

Word Study, students categorize words and letter patterns according to the common

orthographic characteristics. Word Study is effective as supplementary reading

instruction; however, there is a lack of evidence in supporting the effects of Word Study

without additional reading instructions. Making Words is one component of the Working

With Words (Cunningham & Hall, 1997), a multimethod, multilevel instruction program.

Making Words practice includes a teacher calling out a word, and students picking out

the letters included in the word from the letter cards. At the end of the activity, the

students are required to make up words using the letter cards. Cunningham and Hall

(1997) suggested that the effectives of Working With Words by demonstrating that 85%

of first graders who participated in the program were reading at their grade level. Meta-

phonics instruction is a part of the Project READ (Calfee, 1998), and teaches reading and

spelling through social interaction and problem solving. Calfee’s (1998) study suggested

that students participated in this project scored above the district average in

comprehension, fluency, word recognition, spelling, and writing.

Analogy-based approach teaches students novel words through the words they already knew. Stahl, Duffy-Hester, and Stahl (1998) reviewed 14 studies examining the

findings of analogy-based approach supported the effects of this approach. In addition,

the analogy-based approach is most potent when being implemented with other reading instruction, and after when students have reached to the phonetic cue level.

Embedded phonics approach takes place during students’ reading and writing

experiences. This teaching approach has been incorporated into Reading Recovery (Clay,

1993) as one-on-one tutoring for students at-risk for reading failure, which has been

supported by many studies (Center, Wheldall, Freeman, Outhred, & Mcnaught, 1995;

Shanahan & Barr, 1995, Wasik & Slavin, 1993).

Stahl, Duffy-Hester, and Stahl (1998) attempted to compare the magnitude of

effect size among analytic phonics approach, linguistic approach, and synthetic phonics

approach. There is a small difference in the quality between these approaches, with a

slight preference toward a synthetic phonics approach (Chall, 1996). However, such an

advantage should be interpreted in caution because these differences may be due to

differences in practice and coverage among these studies. National Reading Panel (2000)

suggested similar results; when comparing the effectiveness of various phonics

approaches, these approaches do not differ in their effect sizes. However, more evidence

is necessary to verify the reliability of effect size for each approach.

Best Practice with Phonics Instruction

When summarizing research findings, the National Reading Panel (2000)

highlighted three major considerations when implementing systematic phonics

instruction. The first consideration is the focuses on practice. Even when teachers

implemented the systematic phonics instruction consistently, lacking opportunity for

students to practice these skills has suggested being less effective in promoting their

reading skills. Second consideration focuses on teachers’ role in implementing phonics program. Limited research has examined teachers’ participation in these interventions.

While specific studies demonstrated the effectiveness of programs that scripted in a way that teacher judgment is mostly eliminated, teachers’ attitude, training and role still contribute largely to students’ reading performance. The third caution is the awareness that systematic phonics instruction is not a total reading program and it should be integrated with other reading instructions. Reading is a complex task that requires more than alphabetical principle. Without additional support on the development of other reading skills, students still would not become successful readers.

Ehri (2003) reviewed the studies included the National Reading Panel report phonics section and warned several practices that might negatively impact the effectiveness of phonics instruction. The first practice is teaching letter-sound correspondence with a heavy reliance on a worksheet. Although many practices and reading program booklets are available to reinforce students’ knowledge in alphabetical principle, they should not be a substitute for explicit teacher instruction. A more effective strategy would be the teacher explaining the patterns of letter-sound correspondence through reading and writing exercises. Secondly, reciting complex spelling rules might not be so effective in students’ reading or spelling skills. The focuses of these spelling rules are to help students read and write words that fit in these rules, rather than simply memorizing them (Juel & Roper, 1985). Third, teaching phonics separately might also hurt student’s reading progress. Without a clear connection between phonics with other reading/writing skills, students struggle to connect the knowledge from phonics instruction into practice.

In addition to the considerations and cautions suggested by the National Reading

Panel (2000) and Ehri (2003), Stahl (1992) provided several guidelines for implementing effective phonics reading instructions. These guidelines can be grouped into four categories. First, proper phonics instruction should build on students’ print concept and phonemic awareness. As phonics instruction focuses on the letter-sound correspondence, it would be more effective while students building other reading-related skills spontaneously. Second, phonics instruction should be taught in a clear and direct manner.

There is still a strong emphasis on the quality of the literacy instruction teachers deliver.

Only when phonics instruction is delivered in clear and direct way, students would be able to benefit from the instruction. Third, phonics instructions may include onsets, rimes, and invented spelling practice. Teaching grammatical rules through onsets and rimes is an alternative reading strategy rather than phonics instruction. However, due to the success in rime-based instruction, it could be beneficial to incorporate onsets and rimes to phonics reading.

Introduction to HeadSprout Early Reading

The HeadSprout Early Reading program is an online literacy curriculum targeting the needs of students from kindergarten through 2nd grade. The complete curriculum currently includes a placement test, a progress map, 80 interactive online episodes of reading lessons, 90 sprout stories, and eight groups of flash cards.

At the beginning of HeadSprout Early Reading, students may take a placement test to evaluate their reading level and receive a suggested entry episode based on the test results. A progress map is included as part of the reading curriculum, with a purpose of tracking learning progress and motivating students completing all online lessons.

Online episodes. These 80 HeadSprout Early Reading online episodes focus on basic reading skills, such as phonemic awareness, print awareness, phonics, sounding out, and segmenting and blending (Layng, Twyman, & Stikeleather, 2004b). Each episode

lesson lasts approximately 20 minutes for typically developing students (Layng,

Twyman, & Stikeleather, 2004a) and focuses on learning certain sounds or words. See

Appendix A for the elements taught and skills addressed across HeadSprout Early

Reading episodes. The program records students’ performance on each episode as well as overall reading progress, such as the number of completed episodes, the amount of time students spent on each episode, the number of responses made during each episode, the accuracy of student responses and the latency of all responses (Layng et al., 2004b).

These online episodes are designed to capture young readers attention through

highly interactive activities, immediate feedback and build-in reinforcement. Students

travel through various animated worlds and meet characters that highly engage their

attention. Each episode provides explicit and direct phonics teaching along with multiple

practice experiences of blending and segmenting. Repeated practice builds students’

reading fluency as well as confidence in reading, and in turns increases the likelihood of

pronouncing words/sounds accurately (Layng, Twyman, & Stikeleather, 2003).

Immediate and corrective feedback are provided through student’s practice. The program

is tailored to student’s individual progress in learning and understanding the lessons.

Students need to demonstrate mastery level over 90% to move to next episode (Storey,

McDowell, & Leslie, 2017).

Sprout stories. Ninety illustrated books are provided corresponding to the

instruction material from episodes five through 80. The content in these books are

decodable to students. Each book is tailored specifically to the letter, words, sounds or

skills taught in the corresponding episode (Layng et al., 2003). Educators may use these

stories to reinforce instruction provided through online lessons.

Eight of the 90 sprout stories books can be used as benchmark assessments at the completion of every 10th episode. The results of students’ reading performance (accuracy and fluency) on these eight sprout stories can be evaluated by an educator and rated as

either independent, satisfactory, or in need of practice. If the evaluation indicates that

students need additional practice, teachers may direct the students to a previous episode or use flash cards for additional practice.

Flash cards. There are eight groups of flash cards corresponding with the letters

and words that are taught in every 10th episode lesson. Those flash cards are designated

for fluency-based practice involving students practicing timed reading of sounds, letters

and connected text. With each group of flash cards, a suggested goal of time for

completion is present at the upper right corner of the sheet. Teacher can adjust the goal

according to students reading ability. A progress-monitoring chart is also provided, with a

teachers’ and students’ versions to track students’ reading accuracy and fluency.

The five critical components of HeadSprout Early Reading match with the

National Reading Panel (2000): phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. More specifically, the HeadSprout Early Reading program focuses on

several basic reading strategies, such as phonemic awareness, print awareness, phonics,

sounding out, and segmenting and blending sounds in words (Twyman, Layng,

Stikeleather, & Hobbins, 2004).

The MimioSprout Early Reading Teacher’s Guide (Mimio Inc., 2012) named the

following three recommendations for implementation: (1) Students need to complete a minimum of three episodes per week; (2) Students need to speak out load when a certain icon is present on the screen; (3) Students need to finish all stories while progressing through the episodes. MimioSprout (2012) was the previous version of HeadSprout Early

Reading, which consisted of the same online lessons and instructional materials. It is also suggested that preschool and kindergartens complete at least the first 40 episodes, and first graders are encouraged to reach the complete 80 episodes.

Systematic Review on Effects of HeadSprout Early Reading

This systematic review aims to analyze studies that were conducted to evaluate the effects of HeadSprout Early Reading. The process included two steps. The first step involved conducting a databased search using Education Research Complete, ERIC,

PsycINFO, and Academic Research Complete (from 2000 to 2017) using the following search terms “HeadSprout,” “HeadSprout Reading,” “HeadSprout Early Reading,” and

“HeadSprout Basic Reading.” The second step was the ancestral search using the articles identified by the first step.

To be included in the review, the articles had to meet the following criteria: (a) the study had to employ an experimental/quasi-experimental or a single subject design;

(b) the independent variable had to include HeadSprout Early Reading; (c) the dependent variable had to include a measure of any academic or classroom social behavior; and (d) article had to be published in a peer-reviewed journal between 2000 to 2017.

Results

Eight articles have met the aforementioned criteria. Of these eight articles, seven

of them (Clarfield & Stoner, 2005; Huffstetter, King, Onwuegbuzie, Schneider, &

Powell-Smith, 2010; Kreskey & Truscott, 2016; Pindiprolu & Forbush, 2008; Twyan,

Layng & Layng, 2011; Tyler, Hughes, Beverley, & Hastings, 2015; Whitcomb, Bass, &

Luiselli, 2011) examined the effectiveness of Headsprout Early Reading, and one study

(Storey, McDowell, & Leslie, 2017) examined the effects of both HeadSprout Early

Reading and HeadSprout Comprehension. HeadSprout Comprehension is an online

reading curriculum designed for students from third to fifth grades, which was published

by the same company that produced HeadSprout Early Reading program. This systematic

review did not include participants’ results that had been implemented with HeadSprout

Comprehension from the Storey, McDowell, and Leslie’s (2017) study.

Participants. Among the eight articles that examined the effectiveness of

HeadSprout Early Reading, a total number of 374 participants were included. The gender of the participants was reported in eight out of these nine studies. A total number of 143

(38.26%) were identified as female and 231 (61.76%) were identified as male students.

Among these participants, one student was identified with autism spectrum

disorder, three were identified with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD),

and 87 (22.89%) were identified as at-risk with reading difficulties. In addition, 10

participants spoke English as a second language.

Participants from these studies ranged in age from four to nine, with the majority

ages falling within five to seven years old (attending k-2nd). The only nine years old

included in these studies was a student with autism (Whitcomb et al., 2011). This was due

to this student’s limited cognitive abilities, and the consideration that his literacy skills

may develop slower than typical developing peers (Barker, Sevcik, Morris, & Romski,

2013). One study implemented the HeadSprout Early Reading on a sample of preschool children, with an age range of 4.66 to 5.58 (Huffstetter et al., 2010).

Settings. Among these eight studies, the settings in which the intervention took place and the personal who implemented intervention varied. Four of the eight studies took place in public elementary schools and were implemented by teachers or teacher assistants with 282 participants (75.40%; Clarfield & Stoner, 2005; Kreskey & Truscott,

2016; Twyan et al., 2011; Tyler et al., 2015). One study implemented HeadSprout Early

Reading in two Head Starts centers with teachers and teacher assistants implementing the program (16.57%; Huffstetter et al., 2010). One study implemented HeadSprout in a private school by a classroom teacher (.27%; Whitcomb et al., 2011). Two studies took place at the participants’ home environment and the intervention was implemented either by parents who received training or directly by the researchers (7.75%; Pindiprolu &

Forbush, 2008; Storey et al., 2017).

Table 4

Systematic Review on Headsprout Early Reading Study Participants Dependent Variables Findings Clarfield & 3 male (k 1. Oral language 1. DIBEL probe accuracy PDN Stoner, 2005 to 1st fluency (DIBEL = 100% across all participants grade) Oral Reading 2. Result cannot be interpreted Fluency 1st grade because BOSS was administered probe); at different condition 2. Task engagement (BOSS)

Huffstetter, 19 male 1. Early reading 1. The experimental group King, and 12 skills (Test of Early significantly outperformed Onwuegbuzie, female Reading Ability, 3rd) control group on TERA, F (1, Schneider, & (preschool) 2. Oral language 59) = 39.35, p < 0.01, with a skills (Test of large effect size,  35

Powell-Smith, Language 2=0.24 2010 Development- 2. Experimental group Primary, 3rd) significantly outperformed control group on TOLD-P, F (1, 59) = 37.03, p < 0.01, with a large effect size, 2=0.17 Kreskey & 31 male 1. DIBEL 1. There is no significant Truscott, and 20 benchmark differences in ISF, LNF, and 2016 female (k) assessment for NWF scores between kindergarten experimental group and control group Pindiprolu & 11 1. DIBEL Progress 1. After controlling the Forbush, 2008 (unknown monitoring probe difference in pretest, the control gender) (k (19 – pretest, 20 – group (Funnix) significantly to 2nd posttest) outperformed Headsprout group grade) on LNF (F (1, 22) = 5.99, p = .023, 2= .21) and ORF (F (1, 22) = 16.85, p = .001, 2= .42 2. Participants in the Headsprout group showed medium gains with a median effect size (d= .60) on the WUF measure; Participants in the Funnix group showed small gains (d= .44) on the WUF measure and large gains (d=.60) on the ORF measure Storey, 5 male and 1. DIBELS - ORL 1. All participants in Headsprout McDowell, & 3 female 2. Word Recognition condition increased ORF scores Leslie, 2017 (ages 7 and and Phonics Skills from pretest to midpoint and 9) Set (WRAPS) again from midpoint to post treatment; all participants in control condition decreased ORF scores 2. Participants in Headsprout condition improved on average 0.7 months of growth, with control condition made 0.25 months of growth Twyan, 65 1.Iowa Test of Basic 1. Kindergarten participants: The Layng & Skills for average likelihood of a Layng, 2011 kindergarten (Word substantial difference is 80% Analysis, Reading (ranges =65% to 97%) between Words, and Reading Headsprout and control is Comprehension) because the program is instructionally beneficial 36

2. Iowa Test of 2. The probability of Headsprout Basic Skills for 1st produce an instructionally grade (Word beneficial effect is 99.9% for 1st Analysis, Reading graders based on WJ-III scores Words, and Reading Comprehension) 3. WJ III-R Letter- Word Identification Subtests

Tyler, 25 1. Oral Language 1. Although no significant Hughes, (The Diagnostic difference in DIBEL – ORF, Beverley, & Reading Analysis Headsprout condition Hastings, and DIBEL – ORF) significantly outperformed 2014 2. Word Recognition control condition in DRA (Word Recognition (F(1,29)=1.27, p=.004, d=0.34) and Phonics Skills after controlling the difference in assessment) pre-test 2. Headsprout condition significantly outperformed control condition in WRaPS (F(1,29)=9.95, p=.04, d=0.61) after controlling the difference in pre-test Whitcomb, 1 male 1. Reading accuracy 1. Accuracy on flash cards PND Bass, & (ages 9) (percentage of word = 89% (range = 75% to 100%) Luiselli, 2011 read accurate on 4 2. Accuracy on sprout stories = Headsprout flash 100% cards) 2. Reading accuracy (percentage of word read accurate on sprout stories)

Independent variable. These eight studies implemented HeadSprout Early

Reading program inconsistently. HeadSprout Early Reading aims to help students acquire reading skills in a cumulative, and accretive, rather than a linear fashion. It is designed to build phonic knowledge overtime through 80 online episodes (Layng et al.,

2004a). Students’ performance on standardized tests suggested that students improved on

their reading skills after completing the first 40 episodes of the program (Layng et al.,

2004b). Therefore, to which extent these studies implemented HeadSprout Early Reading

might impact the general findings of studies.

Six out of seven studies reported students’ progress on HeadSprout Early Reading

program. Only two studies implemented the complete 80 episodes of HeadSprout Early

Reading (Storey et al., 2017; Tyler et al., 2015). Three studies implemented equal to or

more than 40 episodes of HeadSprout Early Reading for all participants (Huffstetter et al., 2010; Pindiprolu & Forbush, 2008; Twyan at el., 2005). Two studies implemented 20 to 30 episodes for all participants (Clarfield & Stoner, 2005; Whitcomb et al., 2011).

As discussed early, the complete HeadSprout Early Reading program includes a placement test, a progress map, 80 online episodes of reading lessons, 90 sprout stories, and eight groups of flashcards. These materials altogether boost student’s literacy skills with built-in motivational tools (i.e., progress map), multiple reading practice materials

(i.e., flashcards and sprout stories), and progress monitoring (i.e., sprout stories) with

adjustment to student’s readings level (i.e., placement test). However, not all studies in this review were consistent in the use of the materials provided by HeadSprout Early

Reading. Two studies implemented online episodes only (Clarfield & Stoner, 2005;

Huffstetter et al., 2010). Three studies implemented online episodes with sprout stories available for parents and students, two of which included treatment integrity to ensure sprout stories and online episodes were implemented consistently (Pindiprolu & Forbush,

2008; Storey et al., 2017; Twyan et al., 2011). Two studies implemented online episodes, sprout stories and flashcards consistently and according to developer’s suggestion (Tyler et al., 2015; Whitcomb et al., 2011).

Designs. One of the eight studies utilized a single-subject multiple-baseline across participants design; one study implemented a single-subject multiple-baseline design across sprout stories and word sets design. Four studies used quasi-experimental design, and two studies used experimental design.

Dependent measures and intervention effects. To estimate the effects of the program, PND was calculated for the two single-subject studies by dividing the total number of data points in intervention session that exceeds all baseline data by the total number of data points in intervention session. The average of PNDs across conditions is used to evaluate the magnitude of program effects. PND that is higher than 70% is an indicator of an effective program (Scruggs & Mastropieri, 2001).

One study (Twyan, Layng, & Layng, 2011) used the Hopkins test of instructional effectiveness to evaluate if the HeadSprout Early Reading is pedagogically beneficial, trivial or detrimental. Hopkins test (Batterham & Hopkins, 2005) suggests that a gain of two-month improvement over typical curriculum, after seven months of implementation, should be identified as beneficial. Therefore, a true mean difference larger than 2 months gain indicates a beneficial effect, a mean difference falls between -2 to 2 months gain

indicates a trivial effect, and a mean difference smaller than -2 months gain indicates a

negative effect. Hopkins test calculates a percentage to indicate the likelihood of a true

mean difference lying within its region of effect.

Findings. In general, these eight studies suggested that HeadSprout Early

Reading is an effective program for students’ basic reading skills, as well as language development. Various measurements on these two skills across studies demonstrated an overall growth in students’ literacy skills, indicating the effectiveness of the program.

The specific dependent measures, data analysis results, and general findings are displayed

separately based on the experimental design (see Table 4). Although the findings

supported the HeadSprout Early Reading as an effective reading curriculum, there was a lack of evidence supporting HeadSprout Early Reading was more efficient than other reading curricula.

Out of the eight studies, two compared the effectiveness of HeadSprout Early

Reading with other reading curriculums (Funnix and Harcourt). Funnix is CD-based direct instruction reading program, which contains computer lessons and workbook, while Harcourt is a research-based reading/language art program that focuses on the five critical elements of effective reading instruction (Beck et al., 2003). The findings from these two studies were consistent: There was no evidence that HeadSprout was more effective than other reading curriculums for students who were at-risk for reading difficulties when using the DIBELS as an outcome measurement tool.

Kreskey and Truscott (2015) compared the effectiveness of HeadSprout Early

Reading with Harcourt Trophies as a tier-one reading intervention for kindergarten classes across the whole school district on students who were identified as at-risk for reading failure. The effectiveness of these two reading curricula was measured by students’ performance on Initial Sound Fluency (ISF), Letter Naming Fluency (LNF), and Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF) from the DIBELS. When comparing students’ gains on NWF, a significant difference was detected in favor of kindergarten students in the

Harcourt Trophies group. One reason may contribute to the finding may be the differences in participant groups. There was a significant difference in participants’ reading skills between two conditions prior to intervention. In addition, participants were

not randomly assigned to either condition. Further pre-post analysis indicated that participants from HeadSprout Early Reading condition demonstrated high gains on PSF,

and median gains on WUF, while participants from Harcourt condition demonstrated

small gains on WUF, and large gains on Oral Reading Fluency (ORF). In summary, when

comparing to the reading skills from two conditions at the end of intervention, Harcourt

Trophies condition outperformed the HeadSprout Early Reading condition on the

measurement of decoding skills. However, the HeadSprout Early Reading condition still

made progress on phonemic awareness and vocabulary skills.

Pindiprolu and Forbush (2008) compared the effects of HeadSprout Early

Reading and Funnix when parents implemented the reading curriculum at home during a

summer break. Twenty-five participants (k-2nd grade) were assigned to either the reading

curricula with DIBELS measuring growth in reading skills. When comparing students’ gains on LNF and ORF, the Funnix group outperformed the HeadSprout Early Reading

Group. Further pre-post test analysis indicated that participants in HeadSprout Early

Reading had shown a medium gain on WSF and a small gain on Phoneme Segmentation

Fluency, suggesting that although participants in HeadSprout Early Reading did not

demonstrate better performance on DIBELS than participants in Funnix condition, they

still made substantial gains when comparing reading skills prior to after the

implementation of HeadSprout Early Reading.

While seven studies examine the effects of the HeadSprout Early Reading on

reading and/or other language skills, Clarfield and Stoner (2005) investigated its effects

on both academic performance (oral reading fluency) and behavior (on-task engagement).

This multiple-baseline design study was conducted across three kindergartens who were

identified with ADHD and at-risk for reading difficulties in future. The results suggested

positive effects on reading fluency and participant’s on-task behavior frequency:

HeadSprout Early Reading improved students’ oral reading fluency with 100% PND, and

an immediate decrease in participants’ off-task behavior. However, since participants’

on-task behavior was only measured during intervention phase, their improvement in this

measurement could not be interpreted as a direct effect of HeadSprout Early Reading, but

rather a support of participants’ engagement in HeadSprout Early Reading, as an

indicator for the treatment integrity.

Two studies (Clarfield & Stoner, 2005; Whitcomb et al., 2011) also suggested the

effectiveness of HeadSprout Early Reading on a population with low-incident disabilities

(ADHD and autism) using a single-subject design. The results from both studies demonstrated promising effects of HeadSprout Early Reading on students with severe disabilities. Specifically, Clarfield and Stoner (2005) measured reading fluency through

DIBEL ORF probe on students with ADHD by implementing HeadSprout Early Reading

as a one-to-one intervention. The PNDs for DIBEL ORF across all participants were

100%. Whitcomb, Bass, and Luiselli (2011) investigated the effectiveness of HeadSprout

Early Reading on reading accuracy of a student with autism. This study utilized a multiple-baseline across sprout stories and word sets design. The number of words pronounced accurately within sprouts stories and word sets were measured and analyzed.

The PNDs for these two dependent variables were 100% and 89%, respectively. Both studies (Clarfield & Stoner, 2005; Whitcomb et al., 2011) supported the effects of

HeadSprout Early Reading on students with ADHD and autism in improving oral reading

accuracy and fluency.

Social validity. The importance of the social validity of the intervention should not be overlooked, especially in the field of education. The results of social validity offer an explicit tactic for assessing whether the intervention goals were met. With the major focus on participants’ satisfaction, social validity also ensures the selection of socially important goals, development of socially appropriate procedure and attainment of socially important effects (Wolf, 1978; Fawcett, 1991).

Two of the eight studies in this review included a social validity assessment for

HeadSprout Early Reading. Social validity was measured by interviewing parents, teachers, and students about their perception of the program. Pindiprolu and Forbush’s

(2008) study provided a social validity questionnaire at the end of the study for students and parents who implemented the intervention at home. The questionnaire focused on parents (N=11) and students’ (N=11) experiences with intervention, including general satisfaction with the intervention, the perception of specific elements of the intervention and the perceived effectiveness of the intervention on student’s reading skills. The results indicated that more than 90% of parents found HeadSprout Early Reading easy to implement and would recommend it for another child. In addition, more than 50% of student participants liked HeadSprout Early Reading and would recommend it for a friend. Another study evaluated the perception of teachers and teacher assistants (N=10), who implemented the intervention through an open-ended interview (Huffstetter et al.,

2010). The results were overall positive on teachers’ experiences and perceptions of program effects. In addition, teachers and teacher assistants experienced no difficulty implementing the program, found the program appropriate for preschoolers and believed in the effectiveness in improving oral language and early reading skills.

Both studies suggested that parents and teachers were comfortable with

implementing the HeadSprout Early Reading and perceived it as an effective reading

curriculum for students’ reading skills. In addition, more than half of the students enjoyed

the program. It is also worth mentioning that the student population from both studies

were identified as at-risk for academic difficulties. One study (Huffstetter et al., 2010)

took place in Head Start centers, where all students qualified for free or reduced-price

lunch and their families met the poverty index guideline for the state of Florida. Another

study (Pindiprolu & Forbush, 2008) sampled participants from students (k-2nd grade) who

scored below the 15th percentile on a local, state, or national test of reading achievement assessment. Therefore, the generalizability in the results of social validity should limit to

the population in which the two studies represent.

Implications and limitations. Across eight studies, three major limitations were

noted: (1) limited number of participants, (2) lack of control group, and (3) lack of

treatment integrity. Limited number of participants was a common concern for

experimental and quasi-experimental studies; Not only did it limit the generalizability of

the findings, but also reduced the statistical power to find significance when conducting

ANOVA and t-tests (Pindiprolu & Forbush, 2008). Although these studies have made

attempts to recruit many participants as possible, it was challenging to maintain students

in a study due to student mobility. A lack of a control group was also a common

limitation when conducting experiments in schools, mostly due to the appropriateness

and ethical consideration when implementing HeadSprout Early Reading. A number of

studies also expressed concern with treatment integrity, especially when HeadSprout

Early Reading was not directly implemented by the experimenters (Kreskey & Truscott,

2016). Fidelity could be lacking when teachers or teacher assistants were implementing

HeadSprout Early Reading as a tier-1 or tier-2 level of support on a large scale of

students. Kreskey and Truscott (2016) noted that treatment integrity was concerning due to the lack of professional training for teachers on the appropriate use and potential benefits of computer-based instructions.

Eight studies overall supported the effectiveness of HeadSprout Early Reading on basic reading skills and language skills on participants with or without a disability.

Besides reading and language improvement, Clarfield and Stoner (2005) also suggested the positive effects of HeadSprout Early Reading in reading tasks engagement. More specifically, these eight studies included one participant with autism, and three with

ADHD. More future studies are needed to investigate the effects of HeadSprout on

students with disabilities.

When considering the appropriate candidates for HeadSprout Early Reading,

Tyler et al.’s (2015) pilot studies explore if HeadSprout is an appropriate learning

instrument for youths with severe disability. The results of this study suggested that even

students with severe disabilities (e.g., IDD) could access the program without any

adaption and benefit from the implementation of the program. Therefore, as long as

participants with severe disability met the following criteria: 1) able to independently

interact with computer for 1 minute; 2) able to follow 1 or 2-steps instructions; and (3)

able to verbally communicate and respond to feedback, there should not be any concern

with adjusting the use of HeadSprout or the potential effectiveness for this population.

Chapter 3: Method

This study aims to understand the effectiveness of HeadSprout Early Reading on

kindergartens with autism through monitoring their reading skills. This chapter describes

participants, screening, setting, study personnel, study materials, independent and

dependent variables, experimental design and procedures.

Participants

The participants in the study were enrolled in a charter school located in a

Midwest urban area. The school accommodated students with developmental/learning

delays from preschool through 12th grade. This charter school’s purpose was to promote

academic, social, and emotional growth for students with autism. All students with an

autism diagnosis were eligible to receive the Autism Scholarship from the Ohio

Department of Education, which could be used to pay for educational services at this charter school.

To be considered as a participant in this study, the students needed to (a) have a medical or educational diagnosis of autism; (b) be able to independently interact with iPads for a minimum of one minute; (c) be placed in episode one on the Headsprout

Early Reading entry points based on the placement tests (See Appendix B); (d) be able to follow a minimum of one- to two-step instructions; (e) not demonstrate any violent or self-injury behavior; and (f) have entered this school as a kindergarten student. The early reading specialist assisted with the process of identification of potential candidates for the study. After sending study recruitment letter and parental permission (Appendix C and

Appendix D) to all potentially qualified kindergarten’s families, four parental permissions were obtained.

Screening. All four potential participants were administered the HeadSprout

Early Reading placement test and placed in episode one on the basis of their performance on the placement test provided by the Headsprout Early Reading. All participants were able to interact with electronic tablets independently for more than one minute. All participants were able to follow a 2-step instruction (e.g., “put your tablet away and meet me by the door”). However, one participant displayed severe self-injury behavior (e.g., biting hand, banging head against the floor), thus was disqualified for the study. The remaining three kindergartens students were included in this study. Pseudonyms were used to identify the participants to ensure confidentiality. The following is a description of each participant.

Bill. Bill was a five-year-old African American male. Bill’s individual educational program (IEP) included services for occupational therapy and a behavioral plan with a behavioral specialist. Bill is verbal, able to express needs and wants, and speaks fluently relative to age. Preferred reinforcers used in Bill’s home classroom included a sour patch, starburst, game room, tablet/iPad, outside time, and number game.

Emma. Emma was a five-year-old White female. Emma’s IEP included services related to speech and one-on-one aid for half of the day. No behavioral plan was in place for Emma. Emma replied on her augmentative and alternative communication device to express needs and wants, and to participant daily activities. Preferred reinforcers for

Emma included bubbles, chocolate snacks, swing, and outside time.

Tate. Tate was a five years old White male. Tate’s IEP included services for occupational therapy and speech therapy. No behavioral plan was in place for Tate. Tate replied on his augmentative and alternative communication device to express needs and wants, and to participant daily activities. Preferred reinforcers for Tate included mirror,

Angry Bird, game room, and outside time.

Setting

A separate quiet room within the school building was used for data collection and intervention implementation. During intervention and assessments, no other activity took place in this room to ensure participants received minimal distraction. A private bathroom was located within this room. The primary experimenter conducted all sessions. The primary experimenter and participants sat at the table next to each other, with all the material next to the primary experimenter. When another graduate student was present in this room for the fidelity checklist and inter-rater reliability, that graduate student sat at the table furthest from the participant.

Study Personnel

A 4th-year doctoral student in a school psychology program was the primary experimenter for this study. The primary experimenter collected data on dependent variables, implemented the Headsprout Early Reading program for all participants during their intervention phases, and collected data on social validity. Three graduate students in

Educational Studies department of the Ohio State University conducted on-task behavioral measurements during the intervention phases, completed procedural integrity checklist and collected dependent variable data for the purpose of the inter-observer agreement. All these three graduate students have received training on direct observation

method and fundamental research method. Prior to the beginning of the study, these three

graduate students met with the primary experimenter individually to review the purpose

of the study, study material, behavioral expectation, study procedural and data collection

procedural.

Study Materials

For the purpose of this study, the following materials were used: an iPad with an

app called Kids A-Z, a pen, flashcards of the letters and patterns of letters taught by the

first 23 online episodes, a timer, a printout of Nonsense Word Fluency probe from the

DIBELS, a momentary time sampling record sheet, a script for intervention and assessment administration. The iPad with the existing app, Kids A-Z was provided by the school in which the experiment took place, so Internet connection for the app could be secured. Participants’ previous experiences with tablets did not include a stylus; thus, a stylus was not provided as part of the study material. Participants could bring their own augmentative and alternative communication device to express needs or request break.

Independent Variable

The independent variable of this study is the implementation of the first 23 online episodes from the Headsprout Early Reading program as a supplementary reading instruction. The Headsprout Early Reading program consists of several instructional materials (i.e., online episodes, sprout stories, and flash cards). Only the first 23 online episodes of Headsprout Early Reading were implemented individually to each participant as the independent variable due to the limited school hours and limited funding to purchase other instructional materials. None of the participants had any previous experience with this program based on the report of the early reading specialist. The

program was implemented by the primary experimenter using an iPad. This program was

implemented as a supplementary reading instruction for three to four times per week

during one semester in a separate classroom.

The app on the iPad, Kids A-Z allowed the experimenter to create a class with

three participant’s profile accounts. When the experimenter assisted each participant to

log into his/her account, a progress map would pop up to remind the number of online

episodes that the participant had completed. Each episode taught approximately 1-3 new

phonemes or phonetic elements and reviewed the phonemes and words taught by

previous lessons. For example, one episode may teach the sound corresponded with “v”

and “ee.” Per episode, a participant needed to complete approximately four or five

different exercises, such as matching letter-sound correspondences, blending sounds, and

segmenting words into smaller parts. These 23 episodes were divided into four groups,

for which group participant would explore a new animated world.

The Headsprout Early Reading online episodes focus on basic reading strategies,

such as phonemic awareness, print awareness, phonics, sounding out, and segmenting

and blending (Layng, Twyman, & Stikeleather, 2004b). These online episodes were

designed to capture young readers attention through highly interactive activities,

immediate feedback, and built-in reinforcement. Participants may travel through various animated worlds and meet characters that highly engaging. Each episode provided explicit and direct phonics teaching along with multiple practicing experiences of blending and segmenting. Repeated practices were used to build students’ fluency as well as confidence in reading, and thus increasing the likelihood of pronouncing the words/sounds accurately (Layng, Twyman, & Stikeleather, 2003). Immediate and

corrective feedback was provided. The program was tailored to student’s individual

learning progress and to ensure student’s understanding of the lesson. Participants needed

to demonstrate mastery of 90% or higher to move to the next activity within an episode

(Storey, McDowell, & Leslie, 2017).

Dependent Variable

The dependent variables were the participants’ performances on three basic

reading measurements. First, participants’ knowledge of letter-sound correspondence

taught by HeadSprout Early Reading was monitored by asking participants to sound out

randomly chosen ten out of the 23 letter-sound correspondences covered within the first

23 online episodes. In addition, once a participant completes a group of online episodes,

the participant’s mastery over the letter-sound correspondences taught in that group

episode would be measured. Last, participants’ ability to generalize their skills to produce novel letter-sound correspondences and blend sounds to make words were measured by

the DIBELS NWF. When examining the three consecutive data to determine whether to

move participants into intervention phase, participant’s performance on accurate letter-

sound correspondence data was referred to make such a decision.

Accurate letter-sound correspondence. The accurate letter-sound

correspondence was used to evaluate participants’ mastery of the taught letter-sound

correspondence. Across the 23 online episodes, a total number of 23 phonemes and

phonetic elements were introduced. Each of these 23 phonemes and phonetic elements

was printed on size of 4.5’x3’ flashcard (See Appendix E). At the end of each session, a

random number of 10 flash cards was used to measure a participant’s knowledge of

letter-sound correspondences. Each card would be presented individually to the

participant. The primary experimenter held the flashcard in front of the participant and asked, “What is this sound?” When no response was given, the primary experimenter would call the participant by his/her name and then repeat the same question. Once the participant provided a verbal response, this card would be placed face down on the desk and the next flash card would be presented. There was no time limit for this measurement. When a participant finished all 10 flashcards, number of phonemes and phonetic elements pronounced accurately by the participant was recorded. All 23 flashcards were reshuffled at end of each session. Once a participant completed the accurate letter-sound correspondence, the participant was presented with the DIBELS

NWF.

Accurate letter-sound correspondence per group lessons. These 23 online episodes were categorized into four groups, with each group containing five or six online episodes. Each group episode introduces a range of three to 10 phonemes and phonetic elements (Appendix F). Upon the completion of each group episodes, participants’ mastery over these online lessons was measured. When a participant completed episode

5, 11, 18, and 23, the participant was presented with this probe. This measure was not timed, nor did it have a time limit. Therefore, participants could take as much time as needed to complete this measurement.

Once a participant completed a group of online episodes, the participant was presented with the phonemes and phonetic elements that was printed on size 4.5’x 3’ flash cards and asked to sound them out. When the participant finished sounding out all the phonemes and phonetic elements within the group lesson, the total number of accurate pronunciations of these letter or letter patterns was recorded and the percentage

of accurate responses was calculated through dividing participants’ accurate oral

productions by the total number of letter-sound correspondences within the group online lessons.

Nonsense Word Fluency. At the end of each session, participant’s decoding skills were assessed through the DIBELS Nonsense Word Fluency probes for kindergarten level. The DIBELS is a set of early literacy measurements, especially phonological awareness and alphabet knowledge (Good, Gruba, & Kaminski, 2002). The

DIBELS NWF measures the alphabetic principle and basic phonics. It assesses knowledge of letter-sound correspondences and the ability to blend letter sounds into consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) and vowel-consonant (CV) words (Good, Gruba, &

Kaminski, 2002).

The DIBELS NWF Grade K administration sheet (Appendix G) presented a total number of 50 nonsense words, with five nonsense words per row. Participants were asked to sound out as many nonsense words as possible within one minute. There are two separate scores reported under NWF: total correct letter sounds and total whole words read. Total correct letter sounds refers to the total number of letter sounds produced accurately within one minute, whereas total whole words read refers to the number of nonsense words pronounced accurately within one minute. Both scores were recorded when conducting the Nonsense Word Fluency probe.

Experimental Design

A single-subject multiple-probe design across participants was used in this study to examine the effects of Headsprout Early Reading on participants’ performance.

Multiple-probe design allows studies to examine a functional relationship between the

acquisition of interested behavior (i.e., dependent variable) and the components of a successive sequence (Horner et al., 2005).

A multiple probe design was conducted across three participants. The intervention was introduced to each participant in a staggered manner with previous participant’s performance as a guide. Once the first participant demonstrated a stable performance on accurate letter-sound correspondence (i.e., three consecutive data points), the next participant was moved to the intervention phase. Similarly, when the second participant demonstrated a stable increasing performance (i.e., three consecutive data points), the third participant was moved to the intervention phase.

As baseline was established for each of the three participants, the intervention was then introduced for each one. Considering the treatment was introduced at a different time for each participant, multiple probe design presents an evidence of a functional relationship between the intervention and dependent variables. In this study, the experimental control was demonstrated when improvement in participants’ reading performances took place after the implementation of the HeadSprout Early Reading and the performances in those who remained in baseline stayed stable.

When examining the current literature, the two single-subject design studies

(Clarfield & Stoner, 2005; Whitecomb, Bass, & Leslie, 2017) demonstrated promising effects of Headsprout Early Reading on participants with and without a disability.

Although many studies with experimental or quasi-experimental design also supported the effects of Headsprout Early Reading, two common challenges were noted: limited sample size of participants and the lack of treatment integrity (Kreskey & Truscott, 2016;

Pindiprolu & Forbush, 2008). Both experimental and quasi-experimental designs require

a relatively large sample size to calculate an accurate effect size. Considering autism is a

low-incident disability, it is challenging to locate a large sample size of participants with

autism. In addition, even though a necessary amount of the participants with autism was

recruited, it would be challenging to implement Headsprout Early Reading to all

participants without relying on the assistance of school teachers or assistant teachers. One

major concern with including school staff into intervention implementation was the

consistency in practice, which may introduce treatment integrity error if not taking extra

caution on teachers’ training and perception of the program. Due to the lack of a solution to address these two challenges, experimental/quasi-experimental design was avoided.

When working with students with autism, it is critical to emphasize the individual student as a separate unit and examines the practical procedure that could be implemented in school, home and community contexts. Single-subject research can compare the outcome within and between individuals and provide a detailed analysis of

effects of treatment, allowing further examination on why or why not an intervention is

effective (Horner et al., 2005). An additional practical benefit of a single-subject design

includes its economical that a functional relationship can be established without requiring

too much time, equipment, and a large number of participants (McReynorlds &

Thompson, 1986).

Procedure

Baseline Phase. During baseline sessions, participants’ data were collected

individually in a separate classroom. The primary experimenter walked each participant to the classroom, collected the data, provided verbal praises when both Nonsense Word

Fluency probe and accurate letter-sound correspondence probe were complete, and then 55

walked then participant back to his/her home classroom. The participant who established

a stable performance (i.e., three consecutive stable data points on the accurate letter-

sound correspondence probe) first was moved to intervention phase first.

During the baseline phase, participants received their business-as-usual reading

instruction during their home literacy instruction, which was the Reading Mastery

Signature Edition Direct Instruction curriculum. Reading Mastery Direct Instruction

(Engelmann, 2008) provides systematic reading instruction for students in grades k-6. For

kindergarten-grade level, Reading Mastery provides instructions on sound pronunciation,

letter sound identification, oral blending, letter symbol tracing, and letter sound

discrimination.

Reading Mastery Direct Instruction has been suggested to be appropriate for

students with varying reading performances and can be used with English language

learners and special education students (Engelmann, 2008). For all three participants,

class-wide daily instruction for 30 minutes with Reading Mastery Direct Instruction was

provided. Each participant was enrolled in a class with approximately six students, and

three or four individual aids were available in the classroom to provide verbal prompts

and hand-over-hand assistance during the reading instructional time.

Intervention Phase. During the intervention phase, Headsprout Early Reading

program was implemented in addition to their business-as-usual reading instruction in

their home classrooms, Reading Mastery Direct Instruction (Engelmann, 2008). At the

beginning of the intervention phase, a short practice video was provided so that

participants knew how to navigate the online sessions. The primary experimenter would

greet each participant in his/her home classroom, and then walked to the separate room

within the building together. Primary experimenter helped each participant start the app,

Kids A-Z, and placed the iPad in front of each participant.

The experimenter met with each participant three to four times per week, for approximately 30 minutes. If a participant could not finish an episode within a session, the primary experimenter would help the participant to continue the unfinished episode during the following session. No data would be collected until an episode was completed.

When a participant seemed to be distracted, the primary experimenter would call the participant’s name to redirect him/her back to the online episode. If a participant seemed to be confused with the practice lesson, hand gesture (i.e., pointing to the correct response) and hand-over-hand prompting techniques were provided. However, participants were encouraged to complete each online episode as independently as possible. Participants were allowed to request as many breaks as they wanted either verbally or through their augmentative communication devices.

Reinforcers were provided to Bill and Tate at later sessions when their behavioral difficulties began to hinder their participation with the online episodes (episode 20 for

Tate and episode 8 for Bill). For Bill, a five-minute matching number game was implemented as the reinforcement. Once Bill completed an online episode and probes, the primary experimenter would walk him back to his regular classroom and immediate started the apple matching game. A five-minute timer was set up for the primary experimenter and Bill to play this game. For Tate, playing Angry Bird on his school tablet for five minutes was his reinforcer. Angry Bird is a casual puzzle video game that players can swing vivid birds to hit target pigs. Similar to Bill’s reinforcement procedure, the primary experimenter would walk Tate back to his home classroom and start Angry Bird

for Tate and set it in front of him. A five-minute timer was set up and once the timer ran

out, Tate’s school tablet would be taken away and Tate would return to his class routine.

During the intervention phase, both accurate letter-sound correspondence probe and Nonsense Word Fluency Probe were conducted at the completion of each online episode. Once a participant’s progress indicated an upward trend in performance, the next participant who established a stable baseline was moved into the intervention phase.

These 23 online lessons were categorized within four groups. Once a participant completed a group of online lessons, his/her ability to accurately produce the phonemes and phonetic elements taught within that group lesson was measured. The letter-sound

correspondence probe was administered to each participant by the primary experimenter

at the end of episodes 5, 11, 18, and 23.

Social Validity

At the end of intervention phase, social validity was measured using

questionnaires for all three participants along with their literacy instructors. Participants’

literacy instructors were asked to complete a teacher satisfaction questionnaire, and then

a follow-up open-ended interview was conducted so that they could explain their ratings

(See Appendix H for teacher satisfaction questionnaire). Open-ended interviews were

conducted with two literacy instructors separately for approximately 20 minutes. This

teacher satisfaction questionnaire listed eight statements pertain to their perceptions on the participants’ improvement in reading skills, and the appropriateness and effectiveness of HeadSprout Early Reading program. Literacy instructors may rate their agreement to each statement in a range of 1 to 5, with 1 being “Strongly disagree” and 5 being “Strong agree.”

The student satisfaction questionnaire examined students’ preferences and

perceptions on reading and the Headsprout Early Reading online episodes. Only three

questions were asked on the student satisfaction questionnaire (See Appendix I for

student satisfaction questionnaire). These three questions were read out loud by the

primary experimenter to all participants to assist their understanding of the questions.

Participants may response to each question either verbally, through hand gesture or alternative communication board. Both open-ended interviews from literacy instructors and questionnaire results from teachers and literacy instructors were analyzed.

Treatment Fidelity

Treatment fidelity is one of the significant concerns with internal validity when analyzing studies on effects of Headsprout Early Reading (Pindiprolu & Forbush, 2009).

Therefore, a two-step process was utilized to check the treatment fidelity: student’s on- task behavior and fidelity checklist. Three graduate students other than the primary experimenter conducted the on-task engagement and fidelity checklist. Each of them visited the school once a week and collected data for all three participants’ sessions.

On-Task Engagement. Participants’ on-task behavior frequency was measured when engaging in the online lessons from Headsprout Early Reading. On-task behavior was defined as looking at instructional material, responding to material appropriately, and following teacher/researcher instruction. The momentary time sampling was conducted by graduate student observers (See Appendix J). During the intervention session, this graduate student would observe the participant for four minutes using a momentary time sampling procedure. This graduate student had completed a course in basic screening and monitoring process as well as a basic research method to be equipped with the ability to

accurately conduct momentary time sampling. During the four-minute observation

period, a participant’s behavior was observed and recorded as on-task or off-task every

10 seconds. The percentage of on-task behavior during the observation period was calculated.

Procedural Integrity. Procedural integrity data were collected to ensure the intervention was implemented as intended. Three graduate students alternated attending the intervention sessions and observed adherence to intervention procedures. The graduate students completed two checklists: one for intervention implementation integrity and one for data collection integrity (see Appendix K for Implementation Fidelity

Checklist and Appendix L for Data Collection Fidelity Checklist). Both integrity

checklists were designed by the primary experimenter and included a list of procedural

steps with a checkmark next to each step. A checkmark was placed next to each step if it

was followed as scripted. Intervention procedural integrity checklists were only

conducted during intervention phase, while data collection procedural integrity checklists

were conducted during both baseline and intervention phases. Whenever the primary

experimenter did not conduct the intervention or data collection procedural consistent to

the script, the graduate students were instructed to indicate accordingly on the checklist.

Fidelity checklists were critical when evaluating program effectiveness as the practice of

implementation may directly impact the results (Fisher, Smith, Finney, & Pinder, 2014).

Interobserver Agreement. Interobserver agreement (IOA) is the agreement

between observers, which pertains to the precision of the data collection (Viera &

Garrett, 2005). Establishing a high interobserver agreement was critical for a study’s

internal validity (Cooper & Whiting, 2007). For the purpose of this study, an

interobserver agreement of 80% needs to be reached. When the primary experimenter conducted data collection, a graduate student would record participants’ response and score probes at the same time with the primary experimenter.

When a disagreement between observers took place, the raters would discuss why such difference occurred and made a final decision on the correct score together. To calculate interobserver agreement, the percentage of cases that two raters recorded the same ratings for the same items out of the total number of ratings was utilized. An exact count per interval IOA percentage was calculated by using the following formula:

Agreement Score/ (Agreement Score + Disagreement Score) x 100 = ____ %

Chapter 4: Results

This chapter presents results of the study, which examined the effects of

HeadSprout Early Reading on three kindergartens’ reading skills. At first, the procedural integrity checklist and inter-observer agreement data are presented. Following, each participants’ performances on dependent variables across baseline and intervention phase are reported. Then, results illustrating the effects of HeadSprout Early Reading on dependent variables are presented. Finally, the social validity results are reported.

Procedural Integrity

Intervention procedural integrity. During the intervention phase, there was a total number of 23 sessions (40.35%) that the intervention procedural integrity observation and checklist were completed. Mean adherence to the script was 100%, with all observed sessions, online episodes of HeadSprout Early Reading implemented completely according to the intervention script.

Data collection procedural integrity. Three graduate students visited the session and completed data collection procedural checklist for a total number of 25 sessions

(32.46%). Mean adherence to the script was 97% with range of 92% to 100%.

Inter-observer agreement

Inter-observer agreement was calculated for the dependent variables collected during baseline and intervention phases. Three graduate students collected data on accurate letter-sound correspondence, DIBELS NWF, and accurate letter-sound correspondence per group lesson. These three graduate students independently observed and scored participants’ responses during the administration of the probes. To calculate

the IOA, independent observers’ and experimenter’s scores on each item of each probe was compared. The IOA of each item was calculated through dividing the total number of items on each probe with agreement scores by the total number of observed scores

(agreement plus disagreement scores). For all three dependent variables, the following formula for IOA was used Agreement Score/ (Agreement Score + Disagreement Score) x

100 = ____ %, with an agreement criterion of 80%.

Accurate letter-sound correspondence. During baseline and intervention sessions, each participant was presented with 10 random letters/patterns of letters on flash cards and were required to sound them out. Twenty-three data points on accurate letter- sound correspondence probes (29.87%) were collected by a graduate student observer for the purpose of IOA. The IOA for the accurate letter-sound correspondence was 100% across all the observed sessions.

DIBELS NWF. During baseline and intervention sessions, each participant was presented with the DIBELS NWF kindergarten level probe. Each participant was given a minute to pronounce presented nonsense words as accurately as possible. Both the graduate student observer and the primary experimenter scored participants’ responses at the same time. The primary experimenter administered the probe. A total number of 22

DIBELS NWF probes (28.57%) was completed by three graduate student observers.

Graduate student observers scored both total correct letter sounds and total whole words read of NWF probes. Item by item scores were compared between the independent observers’ and the experimenter’s scores. The mean IOA for the total correct letter sounds was 77.27%, and the mean IOA for the total whole words read was 100%.

Accurate letter-sound correspondence per group lessons. Whenever a

participant completed a group of online lessons, the participant was present with all the

letter-sound correspondences introduced within that group lessons. The accuracy of

letter-sound correspondence produced by participants was recorded by another graduate

student other than the primary experimenter for two sessions (22.22%). The mean IOA

for accurate letter-sound correspondence per group lesson was 100%, as both primary

experimenter and the graduate student always agreed on the count of accurate letter-

sound correspondences produced by participants.

On-task behavior

Momentary time sampling was conducted by a graduate student observer to measure if the participant was engaged during intervention sessions. This graduate student conducted four minutes of momentary time sampling with an interval of 10 seconds when HeadSprout online episodes were implemented. Momentary time sampling was conducted on a total of 25 intervention sessions across three participants. At the end of each 10 second interval, the graduate student would check on the box to indicate if the participant was engaged in on-task behavior.

On-task behavior was defined as participating in the activities in the App, looking at the iPad, interacting with the primary experimenter, and interacting with the iPad. The percentage of on-task behavior was calculated through dividing the number of on-task behavior by the total number of recorded behaviors. The results of three participants’ on- task behavior fluency are displayed in Table 5. Bill was only observed twice by graduate student observers to conduct IOA, on-task behavior, and integrity checklists due to his behavioral difficulties. During intervention sessions, Bill would throw temper tantrums or

refuse to participate that required several long breaks so that graduate student observers could not observe the whole four minutes of the intervention. This behavioral challenge was the reason why reinforcement was introduced beginning episode 8th of his intervention phase.

Table 5

Participants On-Task Behavior Participants Number of Sessions Mean percentage Percentage range

Bill 2 85.42% 70.83% - 100% Tate 11 88.64% 62.50% - 100% Emma 12 86.46% 66.67% - 100%

The HeadSprout Early Reading Effectiveness

The effectiveness of implementing online episodes of HeadSprout Early Reading program through iPad was measured by participants’ ability to accurately produce letter- sound correspondences taught in the episodes, and participants’ ability to produce letter- sound correspondences not taught by the episodes. This study was completed in a total of

76 sessions, 19 baseline and 57 intervention sessions. Participants’ performances across three dependent variables are reported.

Bill

Bill was first introduced to the intervention sessions and completed 16 online episodes. In total, there were five sessions in his baseline phase and 16 sessions in intervention. Bill completed two groups of online episodes, and therefore, got probed on correct letter-sound correspondence twice per group lessons.

Baseline. Bill has obtained an average of correct letter-sound correspondence of

1.20, with the range of 0 to 2. The average of his NWF total correct letter sounds score

was 1, with the range of 0 to 3. The average of his NWF total whole words read was 0.

Intervention. When Bill established a stable baseline (i.e., three consecutive data points) on correct letter-sound correspondence, he was moved to the intervention phase.

During intervention phase, Bill has obtained an average of correct letter-sound correspondence of 5.56, with a range of 2 to 9. The average of his NWF total correct letter sounds score was 5.18, with a range of 0 to 12. The average of his NWF total whole words read was 0. During intervention phases, Bill’s temper tantrum would prevent him from participating in HeadSprout Early Reading online episodes. Starting episode eight

(session 8 for intervention phase), reinforcement was provided at the end of each episode completion. The reinforcement was playing a number matching game with the primary experimenter for five minutes. Once the reinforcement was implemented, Bill’s participation in HeadSprout Early Reading and performance on accurate letter-sound correspondences increased (See Figure 1).

Bill has complete two group lesson; lesson 1 through 5 and lesson 6 through 11.

There were five letter-sound correspondences introduced by online lesson 1 through 5, and Bill accurately pronounced four out of five letter-sound correspondences with an

80% accuracy rate. There were three new letter-sound correspondences introduced by online lesson 6 through 11, and Bill accurately pronounced six of the nine, with 66.6% correct.

Tate

Tate was introduced into the intervention phase after establishing a stable baseline

(i.e., three consecutive data) on letter-sound correspondence variable and after Bill’s intervention data demonstrated an upward trend. Tate completed all 23 online episodes.

There were seven sessions in baseline phase and 23 sessions in intervention phases. Tate completed four groups of online episodes, and therefore, completed correct letter-sound

correspondence per group lessons four times.

Baseline. Tate has obtained an average of correct letter-sound correspondence of

0. The average of his NWF total correct letter sounds score was 0, and the average of his

NWF total whole words read was 0. Tate was not able to accurately pronounce any letter

sounds presented on any probe during the baseline phase.

Intervention. Tate has obtained an average of 2.04 on accurate letter-sound

correspondence, with a range of 0 to 4. The average of his NWF total correct letter

sounds score was 0.87, with a range of 0 to 3. The average of his NWF total whole words

read was 0.

Tate has completed all four group lessons; lesson 1 through 5, lesson 6 through

11, lesson 12 through 18, and lesson 19 through 23. Tate’s performances on letter-sound correspondence per group lesson are presented in table 6.

Table 6

Tate’s Performance on Letter- Sound Correspondence per Group Lesson Group Lesson Total Number of Total Accurate Percentage of Oral Letter-Sound Response Production Correspondence Accuracy Group Lesson 1 5 1 20% Group Lesson 2 9 2 22.22% Group Lesson 3 5 2 40% Group Lesson 4 3 0 0%

Emma

Emma was last introduced into the intervention session and completed 18 online episodes. In total, there were seven sessions in her baseline phase and 18 sessions in her intervention phase. Emma completed two groups of online episodes.

Baseline. During baseline phase, Emma obtained an average 1.14 correct letter- sound correspondences with a range of 0 to 2. The average of her NWF total correct letter sounds score was 1, with a range of 0 to 3. The average of her NWF total whole words read was 0.

Intervention. When Tate has demonstrated an upward trend on his letter-sound correspondence (i.e., three consecutive data), Emma was moved to intervention phase.

During her intervention phase, Emma obtained an average of 3 on accurate letter-sound correspondence, with a range of 1 to 5. The average of her NWF total correct letter sounds score was 1, with a range of 0 to 4. The average of her NWF total whole words read score was 0.

Emma has complete three group lessons; lesson 1 through 5, lesson 6 through 11, and lesson 12 through 18. There were five letter-sound correspondences introduced by online lesson 1 through 5, and Emma accurately pronounced two of them and obtained an accurate percentage of 20%. There were nine new letter-sound correspondences introduced by online lesson 6 through 11, and Emma accurately pronounced two and obtained an accuracy rate of 22.2%. Five new letter-sound correspondences were covered in lesson 12 to 18, and Emma was not able to verbally identify any of them accurately and obtained an accurate percentage of 0%.

Magnitude of Intervention Effects on Dependent Variables

To monitor participants’ growth in their ability to produce letter-sound correspondences, three dependent measures were administered. The first one was accurate letter-sound correspondence, which required participants to sound out 10 flash cards with letters/patterns of letters. At the end of each online episode, participants were presented with a random selection of 10 out of the 23 letter/patterns of letters taught by the HeadSprout Early Reading. The second measure was DIBELS NWF, which yielded two scores, total correct letter sounds and total whole words read. DIBELS NWF was administered at the end of each online episode. It was a timed measurement and required participants to sound out nonsense words. The last variable was accurate letter-sound correspondences per group lesson, which was conducted when a participant completed a group of online lessons. All the letter-sound correspondences taught within the group of online lessons were presented and the participant was required to sound them out.

Magnitude of intervention effects were calculated by using PND between participants’ performance in baseline and intervention phases. PNDs were calculated for accurate letter-sound correspondence and DIBELS NWF total correct letter sounds. PND was calculated through dividing the number of data points above the highest data of the baseline phases by the total number of data points in the intervention phase.

Accurate letter-sound correspondence

The accurate letter-sound correspondence was defined as the accurate oral

production of ten random letter-sound correspondences introduced by the first 23 online

episodes of Headsprout Early Reading. The minimal score a participant may obtain under this dependent variable was 0 as the participant could not accurately pronounce any presented letters or patterns of letters. The maximal score a participant may obtain under

this dependent variable was 10 as the participant pronounced all letters or patterns or

letters accurately.

For Bill, the average accurate letter-sound correspondence during baseline phase

was 1.2, and the accurate letter-sound correspondence during intervention phase was

5.56. For Tate, the average accurate letter-sound correspondence during baseline phase

was 0, while the average accurate letter-sound correspondence during intervention phase was 2.04 with a range of 1 to 4. For Emma, the average accurate letter-sound correspondence during baseline phase was 1.14, while the average accurate letter-sound correspondence during intervention phase was 3 with a range of 1 to 5. The PNDs calculated for Bill, Tate, and Emma were 87.50%, 95.65%, and 66.66% respectively. The overall PND for all the participants was 83.27%. The visual presentation of correct letter- sound correspondence produced by each participant is displayed in Figure 1.

Figure 1. The Results of HeadSprout on Letter-Sound Correspondences

DIBELS NWF

DIBELS NWF measures decoding involving making letter-sound correspondences (Kaminski & Good, 1996). Participants were presented with a size A4 paper with Vowel-Consonant (VC) and Consonant-Vowel-Consonant CVC pattern nonsense words and asked to produce as many letter-sound correspondences as possible within one minute. Participants received one point per letter-sound correspondence for 71

total correct letter sounds and received one point for total whole words read if verbally

produced the whole word.

Total correct letter sounds. For Bill, the average score on total correct NSF

letter sounds obtained during baseline phase was 1, and the average score on total correct

NSF letter sounds during intervention phase was 5.18. For Tate, the average score

obtained on total correct NSF letter sounds during baseline phase was 0, and the average score on total correct NSF letter sounds during intervention phase was 0.87. For Emma, the average score on total correct NSF letter sounds obtained during baseline phase was

1, and the average on total correct NSF letter sounds during intervention phase was 1.

The PNDs calculated for Bill, Tate and Emma were 62.5%, 52.2%, and 10.5% respectively. The overall PND for all participants was 41.2%. The visual presentation of correct letter-sound correspondence produced by each participant is displayed in Figure

Figure 2. The Effects of HeadSprout on DIBELS NWF Total Correct Letter

Sounds

Total whole words read. All three participants obtained a score of 0 on NSF total whole words read consistently. None of the participants were able to accurately read out a whole nonsense word within a minute.

Accurate Letter-Sound Correspondences Per Group Lesson

At the end of each group lesson, the participants were presented with all the letter- sound correspondences introduced by that group lesson and asked to sound them out.

There are four group lessons within the first 23 online episodes. Participants’ accuracy

percentages on this variable was calculated by dividing the number of accurate letter- sound correspondences out of the total number of possible letter-sound correspondences that were presented on flash cards. Participants’ performances on accurate letter-sound correspondences per group lesson are displayed in table 7.

Table 7

Participants’ Performances on Accurate Letter-Sound Correspondences per Group Lesson Participants Group Lesson 1 Group Lesson 2 Group Lesson 3 Group Lesson 4 N=5 N=9 N=5 N=3 Bill 80% 66.67% Tate 20% 22.22% 40% 0% Emma 40% 22.22% 0%

Social Validity

Student satisfaction survey. At the end of intervention phase, all participants

were presented with a student satisfaction survey. Only three questions were presented on

the student satisfaction survey with visual prompts. The primary experimenter read each

question out loud to each participant and prompted participants to answer the question if

the participant was not paying attention to the student satisfaction survey.

The first question was: Do you like the HeadSprout Early Reading program?

Below the question, visual presentations of “like” and “don’t like” were available for

participants to choose their answers. The second question was: Have you learned a lot

from the HeadSprout Early program? Below the question, three circles with varying sizes

were used to indicate to what extent participants perceived their learning from the

HeadSprout Early Reading. The third question was: Do you like reading?

Three participants were invited into a separate room within their school building individually to complete the student satisfaction survey. The participants were provided with a pen and the survey sheet. The participant may respond with hand gesture, pointing or circling the response. In addition, Tate and Emma also responded using their communication devices. The participants’ responses to each question are presented in

table 8.

Table 8

Student Satisfaction Survey Results Participants Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Bill Like A lot Yes Tate Like No Response Yes Emma No Response A lot Yes

Teacher satisfaction questionnaire. At the end of intervention phase, two

literacy instructors, Ms. Taylor and Ms. Staci from participants’ class were invited to

complete a teacher satisfaction questionnaire and a follow-up 10 minutes interview.

Literacy instructors rated all statements in a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being “Strongly

disagree” and 5 being “Strong agree”. Instructions for teacher satisfaction questionnaire

were at the top of the questionnaire.

On teacher satisfaction questionnaire, eight statements pertained to participant’s

reading skills and reading interests were listed. More specifically, questions 1, 4, 5, and 8

focused on whether literacy instructors have observed any improvement on participants’

reading abilities (i.e., reading skills, oral vocabulary, ability to read independently, and

ability to sound out words, respectively). Questions 2 and 3 focused on participant’s

reading behavior, and questions 6 and 7 measured literacy instructors’ perception on the

appropriateness and the effectiveness of the HeadSprout Early Reading. Bill has his own literacy instructor, while Emma and Tate were in the same literacy instruction classroom.

Two literacy instructors completed the teacher satisfaction questionnaire for these three participants (See Table 9).

Table 9

Teacher Satisfaction Questionnaire Results Question Number Bill Tate Emma

1 (improvement in 4 1 1 reading skills) 2 (enjoy reading 4 1 1 more) 3 (read more 4 1 1 frequently) 4 (oral vocabulary) 4 4 4 5 (read 3 1 1 independently) 6 (appropriate 5 1 1 instruction) 7 (recommend) 4 3 3 8 (ability to sound N/A 4 4 out words) Bill’s literacy instructor, Ms. Taylor, observed an overall increase in both Bill’s reading skills and reading behaviors. Ms. Taylor noted an improvement in oral vocabulary and reading frequency. However, Ms. Taylor shared that considering class instruction only focused on producing individual sounds, and not blending sounds to make words. Therefore, she could not comment on Bill’s ability to sound out words. In general, Ms. Taylor believed that HeadSprout Early Reading was appropriate for Bill and would recommend other students with reading difficulties with this program. A follow-up interview with Ms. Taylor indicated that an improvement in Bill’s participation and interests in reading during literacy instruction was observed in class. Ms. Taylor shared

that she felt HeadSprout Early Reading had benefits Bill greatly. According to Ms.

Taylor, since the implementation of HeadSprout Early Reading, Bill became more engaged during reading literacy instruction time, as the number of his disruptive behavior has decreased. Based on Ms. Taylor’s observation, Bill also demonstrated more interests and confidence during reading instruction time. Bill started to become eager to help and share his answers when his peers were struggling to produce an answer.

Tate and Emma’s literacy instructor, Ms. Staci, rated all statements equally for both participants. Ms. Staci rated “Strongly disagree” on the two statements pertain to participants’ reading behavior. Ms. Staci did not believe that Tate and Emma had enjoyed reading more nor became more independent when reading. Ms. Staci did not notice improvement in participants’ reading skills and ability to read independently. However, she rated “Agree” on statement pertain to participant’s growth in oral vocabulary and ability to sound out words. Ms. Staci rated “Strongly disagree” on the appropriateness of the HeadSprout Early Reading for Tate and Emma. However, she would recommend this program for individuals with autism and reading difficulties. A follow-up interview was conducted for Ms. Staci to elaborate on her ratings. Ms. Staci shared during literacy instruction period, both Tate and Emma participated through their alternative communication board. Therefore, oral language was not a demand nor an expectation for them. However, she has noticed that both Emma and Tate were more likely to produce sounds and provide oral response ever since the implementation of HeadSprout Early

Reading. However, Ms. Staci shared that neither Tate nor Emma required to read during literacy instruction period, considering it was not part of the Reading Mastery Direction

Instruction curriculum. Therefore, Ms. Staci did not notice any improvement in Tate and

Emma’s other reading skills or reading behavior. However, Ms. Staci did not consider

HeadSprout Early Reading an appropriate instruction for Tate and Emma since Ms. Staci

believed that it was necessary for them to speak it out. Ms. Staci shared that both Tate

and Emma had been in her classroom at the beginning of this school year, and both were

taught on how to alternative communication board. Ms. Staci believed that both social skills and ability to communicate had improved significantly ever since their master on alternative communication boards. Both students were heavily relied on and greatly benefited from their alternative communication boards. Ms. Staci believed that

HeadSprout’s focus on oral language was not appropriate nor necessary for Tate and

Emma. However, she would recommend this program for other individuals with autism

who were able to communicate verbally.

Chapter 5: Discussion

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effectiveness of the online

episodes of HeadSprout Early Reading on three kindergartens with autism with focus on improving their phonics skills. This chapter provides a discussion on the results of this study. The effects of HeadSprout Early Reading on participants’ ability to produce oral letter-sound correspondences are discussed at first. Then participants’ performance on

nonsense word fluency is discussed. Then, the results from social validity measurements

is presented. Finally, methodological concerns, limitations, suggestions for future

research and the implications of this study are discussed.

Research question 1: Is the implementation of the first 23 online episodes from the

Headsprout Early Reading curriculum effective for helping a sample of students with

autism Spectrum Disorder acquire letter-sound correspondence?

Functional Relationship. A visual analysis of the letter-sound correspondences reveals a functional relationship has been established between HeadSprout Early Reading and participant’s acquisition of letter-sound correspondences taught directed by the online episodes. All participants’ abilities to sound out letter-sound correspondence have

improved when the HeadSprout Early Reading online episodes were implemented, even

though such improvement may not be socially meaningful. Based on the finding, a

functional relationship was established between the intervention (i.e., HeadSprout Early

Reading) and participants’ oral production of letter-sound correspondence.

This finding was somewhat consistent with the previous study (Whitcomb et al.,

2011) supporting the effectiveness of HeadSprout Early Reading on the reading skill of a

nine-year old male with autism. Whitcomb, Bass, and Luiselli (2011) monitored this

participant’s ability to pronounce the sight words introduced by the HeadSprout Early

Reading, and his performance has yielded a PND of 100% with sight word identification.

Accurate letter-sound correspondence. Participants demonstrated low yet stable performance on letter-sound correspondence during the baseline phase. The average accurate letter-sound correspondence produced by three participants was 0.73 during baseline, whereas the average accurate letter-sound correspondence produced by participant during intervention was 3.37. The PNDs for Bill, Tate, and Emma were

87.50%, 95.65%, and 66.66% respectively, with a mean PND of 83.27%. A PND above

70% suggested an effective intervention, a PND between 50% to 70% was considered as a questionable effective intervention, and a PND below 50% was considered not effective

(Scruggs & Mastropieri, 1998). Although the PNDs were relatively high, it should be noted that most of the participants did not achieve substantially higher levels of performance than their performance in the baseline phase. Therefore, based on the PND,

HeadSprout Early Reading was somewhat effective for this sample of participants with autism spectrum disorder acquiring letter-sound correspondence.

The level at Emma’s performance of oral production of letter-sound correspondence before intervention was lower than her performance after receiving intervention. During baseline, she has obtained an average of score of 1.14, with the range of 0 to 2. During intervention phase, Emma has obtained an average of accurate letter-sound correspondence of 3, with the range of 1 to 5. Second, her intervention data showed variability in performance especially beginning with episode 5. Before episode 5,

Emma did not demonstrate much progress with her letter-sound correspondence. Prior to episode 5, her performance on letter-sound correspondence all fell into the range of 1 and

2, which was consistent with her baseline phase. On the 17th intervention session,

Emma’s performance dropped to baseline levels and returned to above baseline level on

18th intervention session.

There are several reasons that might explain why Emma’s accurate letter-sound correspondence did not reflect a positive response towards the intervention until episode

5. First, the lack of exposure and experience with online curriculum through an iPad may have attributed to the minimal effect of HeadSprout Early Reading at the beginning part of Emma’s intervention phase. Although Emma was comfortable with her own alternative communication board, her literacy instructor noted that no exposure with electronics was present at school. Considering Emma has demonstrated a preference of physical activity and food, such as swing time, bubble time, and snacks, as her rewards, interaction with tablets or computer programs was not part of her daily school routine or reinforcement system. This lack of exposure may explain why it took Emma longer to respond to HeadSprout Early Reading.

The second reason may be that HeadSprout Early Reading relies on verbal responses. Accurate letter-sound correspondence probe requires participants to produce oral production of letter-sound correspondences. As Emma’s literacy instructor noted, using verbal communication or providing verbal response was not one of Emma’s literacy or school-related goals. In addition, based on the behavior and speech uttered by participants through the study, Emma was the least verbal participant. Therefore, requiring Emma to verbally pronounce the letter-sound that she has learned through online lessons was a novel request for her. The challenge with producing verbal

utterances could be another reason why her performance on accurate letter-sound correspondences did not somewhat improve until episode 5.

Although the PND of Emma’s accurate letter-sound correspondence indicated a questionable intervention effect for HeadSprout Early Reading, Emma still demonstrated some instances of improvement over baseline. However, her performance varied somewhat throughout the intervention phase.

It is also worth noting that Tate has obtained the highest PND on this measurement, even though the average score obtained by Bill (5.56) was much higher than Tate (2.04). This was largely due to the differences in their baseline performance.

During baseline, Bill has obtained an average score of accurate letter-sound correspondence of 1.20, with the range of 0 to 2. However, Tate was not able to produce any verbal response, and obtained a score of 0 consistently during baseline. Tate’s stable yet low performance during baseline was the main reason that he has obtained the highest

PND although Bill performed at higher levels during the final nine intervention sessions.

Accurate Letter-Sound Correspondence per Group Lessons. Participants’ performance on accurate letter-sound correspondences per group lessons provided additional information on the effectiveness of HeadSprout Early Reading for this sample of participants with autism. On average, Bill’s mastery of the letter-sound correspondence upon the completion of each group lesson was 73.33%. Tate’s mastery of the letter-sound correspondence upon the completion of each group lesson was 20.55%.

Emma’s mastery of the letter-sound correspondence upon the completion of each group lesson was 20.74%. Although Bill’s performance on accurate letter-sound correspondence per group lessons was above 70%, both Tate and Emma only accurately

pronounced 20% of letter-sound correspondence upon their completion of each group

lesson.

Tate and Emma’s poor performance on accurate letter-sound correspondence per group lesson may be attributed to the diversion from routine. Each participant joined every intervention session with the anticipation of an online episode, ten flash cards and

DIBEL NWF probe. However, when each group lesson was completed, participants were presented with additional flash cards and required to sound them out, which was different than their usual intervention routine. As DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Association,

2013) included “insistence on sameness, inflexibility adherence to routines, or ritualized patterns of verbal/nonverbal behavior” as a diagnostic criterion for autism, this inconsistency with usual intervention session may have caused discomfort or irritation that may have negatively impacted participants’ performances.

Bill significantly outperformed Tate and Emma on accurate letter-sound correspondence per group lesson. Bill was the only participant that did not rely on an alternative communication board and demonstrated the ability to verbally communicate his needs and wants. When conducting all probes, Bill had the least difficulty with providing a verbal response compared to Emma and Tate. Therefore, it was more challenging for Emma and Tate to perform the tasks.

Research question 2: Is the implementation of the first 23 online episodes from the

Headsprout Early Reading curriculum effective for helping a sample of students with autism Spectrum Disorder acquire nonsense word fluency?

Functional Relationship. A visual analysis of participants’ performance on

DIBELS NWF Total Correct Letter Sounds fails to reveal a functional relationship

between HeadSprout Early Reading and their performance on this measure. On average,

these three participant’s performances on DIBELS NWF total correct letter sounds has

improved from baseline phase (0.63) to intervention phase (2.10). However, a functional

relationship could not be established between the intervention (HeadSprout Early

Reading) and participants’ ability to pronounce novel letter-sound correspondence. This finding fails to support that the implementation of HeadSprout Early Reading allows individuals with autism to generalize their ability to verbally produce letter-sound correspondences that were not directly taught.

Functional Relationship. A visual analysis of the participants’ performance on

DIBELS NWF Total Whole Words Read also failed to reveal a functional relationship

between HeadSprout Early Reading and participants’ performance on this measure. None

of the participants were able to orally produce any nonsense words within one minute.

Considering participants’ low scores on DIBELS NWF total correct letter sounds, this

result was not surprising. In addition, when examining the first row of five nonsense

words presented on the DIBELS NWF, a total number of 11 letter-sound

correspondences were included. Only two out of these 11 letter-sound correspondences

were introduced and taught in the first 23 online episodes of HeadSprout Early Reading.

Therefore, considering that most of the letter-sound correspondences covered in the

DIBELS NWF were not taught by the HeadSprout Early Reading, it was not surprising

that none of the participants were able to produce any complete nonsense word.

Another factor that may have contributed to participant’s poor performance on

DIBELS NWF was the fact that it was a fluency-based measurement. Participants who

were not accustomed to fluency-based instruction and assessment may have difficulty

producing positive outcomes from the DIBELS NWF. This may be especially the case for

Emma and Tate who demonstrated limited oral communication skills and hesitated to use verbal communication.

Research question 3: Is Headsprout Early Reading curriculum a socially valid intervention perceived by teachers for helping a sample of students gain basic reading skills?

This study also investigates whether the HeadSprout Early Reading curriculum is a socially valid intervention for kindergartens with autism perceived by teachers. Social validity refers to the social significance of the goals selected, the acceptability of procedures employed, and the effectiveness of the outcomes produced in applied study

(Wolf, 1978). One measurement of the social validity of HeadSprout Early Reading was based on the perception from both literacy instructors. A short survey and a follow-up interview were conducted individually for each instructor.

Both literacy instructors completed the teacher satisfaction survey without any knowledge of participants’ progress with HeadSprout Early Reading. Both literacy instructors commented that HeadSprout Early Reading appeared to be an appropriate instruction for individuals with autism or reading difficulties. Although participants were not required to read during their daily literacy instruction, their literacy instructors still noticed improvements in both their reading abilities and reading behaviors during their leisure.

Interestingly, Tate and Emma’s literacy instructor believed that participants who relied on alternative communication boards did not need to be taught phonics skills and the ability to read words aloud. It was interesting when Tate and Emma’s literacy

instructor believed that HeadSprout Early Reading was an appropriate instruction for individuals with autism, but not suitable for Emma and Tate due to their dependency on alternative communication boards. In other words, Emma and Tate’s literacy instructor supported the social validity of HeadSprout Early Reading with regards to intervention procedures, however, they did not support the goal of the program to help individuals who use communication boards produce oral production of letter-sound correspondences.

This was surprising given that the ultimate goal of alternative communication board was to provide a functional method for individuals with limited oral language to communicate

(Estrella, 2000). Romski and Sevcik (2005) listed several myths with the use of alternative communication boards. One of these myths was that alternative communication boards would hinder further speech development. Many previous studies have suggested that many individuals who relied on alternative communication boards can successfully develop oral language when the alternative communication boards were taken away (Adamson & Dunbar, 1991; Miller, Sedey, Miolo, Rosin, & Murray-Brach,

1991). For young children, the use of alternative communication boards has not been suggested to hinder language development (Cress, 2003). Romski and Sevcik (2005) emphasized that the development of spoken communication should be a stimulus goal when the alternative communication board was implemented.

It is also worth noting that Bill’s literacy instructor noticed an increase in Bill’s confidence and interest in reading with the implementation of HeadSprout Early

Reading. Although this study lacks data to support Bill’s literacy instructor’s observation, her observation was supported by previous studies examining the effects of HeadSprout

Early Reading on non-academic/cognitive skills, such as students’ on-task engagement

during usual literacy instruction period (Hammond, 2012), and students’ ability to make

accurate responses during the online episodes of HeadSprout Early Reading (Plavnick et

al., 2014; Plavnick, Thompson, Englert, Mariage, & Johnson, 2016).

Research question 4: Is Headsprout Early Reading curriculum a socially valid

intervention perceived by students for helping a sample of students gain basic reading

skills?

To examine participants’ perception of the effectiveness of HeadSprout Early

Reading, a brief student survey was conducted at the end of the intervention phase. When

examining participants’ response on a student satisfaction survey, 66.66% responses

indicated that the participants liked the HeadSprout Early Reading, and 66.66%

responses indicated that they learned a lot from the HeadSprout Early Reading. All three

participants shared that they enjoyed reading.

When participants failed to provide a response to an item from the student

satisfaction questionnaire, they were redirected back to the questions. For example, the

primary experimenter would verbally repeat the question while pointing to the question.

However, when a participant did not provide a response on an item, it was challenging to

analyze the reason behind it. One feasible explanation for the lack of response may have

been participants’ lack of understanding of the questionnaire item being asked of them.

Considering participants’ current school-related goal focusing on basic self-care skills

and communicating basic needs (e.g., food and break), it was possible that participants

were not able to comprehend all items listed on the student satisfaction questionnaire

even with the support of visual cues and the primary experimenter reading questionnaire items out loud.

Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research

Although the results of this study extend current literature on examining the

effectiveness of HeadSprout Early Reading on literacy performance of participants with autism, there are limitations that are important to acknowledge. First, due to minimal funding, the implementation of the HeadSprout Early Reading was limited to the online episodes only. The complete package of the HeadSprout Early Reading included a placement test, a progress map, 80 interactive online episodes of reading lessons, 90 sprout stories, and eight groups of flash cards. This current study did not include the sprout stories and flash cards, which was designed as benchmark assessment and additional practice. With the additional support of sprout stories and flash cards, participants may have demonstrated higher performance levels. In addition, due to the limited school hours, only the first 23 online episodes were implemented. Bill and Emma did not reach the 23rd online episode. The developer of the program suggested the

program help students acquiring reading skills in a cumulative rather than a linear fashion, and students’ phonics knowledge builds overtime (Layng et al., 2004a).

Therefore, if participants were able to complete the 80 online episodes, the HeadSprout

Early Reading program may have yielded stronger effects of this sample of students.

The implementation of the program and practice sessions have direct impact on

intervention effectiveness. Future studies can address this concern by duplicating the

study with the implementation of the complete package included in HeadSprout Early

Reading curriculum and implementing at least 40 online episodes for kindergartens, as

suggested by developers (Mimio Inc., 2012).

The second limitation was that this study failed to measure maintenance effects on making letter-sound correspondences. Maintenance measures participants’ ability to demonstrate previous acquired skills over time, even after intervention or reinforcement has been removed. Not only skill maintenance is a critical factor for demonstrating program effectiveness, it is also important for helping students advance their skills.

Future studies may include maintenance measures to ensure participants were able to continue producing letter-sound correspondence even after the intervention was completed.

The third limitation was Emma’s lack of responding during the intervention until episode 5. As discussed earlier, this could be explained as either lack of exposure with online curriculum or difficulty with orally producing accurate letter-sound correspondences. However, Emma’s sudden improvement since episode 5 could also be attributed to external environmental factors, such as additional tutor at home or change in current literacy instruction.

When examining the data yielded by this study, it is worth discussing the low

IOA in DIBELS NWF total correct letter sound (77.27%). There are two possible explanations for the discrepancy in scores produced by the primary experimenter and graduate student observers. First, the primary experimenter overlooked the clinical experiences with DIBELS for each graduate student observer. Without proper supervision and training to ensure all graduate student observers could conduct DIBELS

NWF with strong validity and reliability, the DIBELS NWF scores provided by graduate student observers may not valid. Secondly, Emma and Tate made intelligible sounds that were challenging to decode. Future studies may address this challenge by recording and

videotaping participants’ responses during data collection. With a permanent product of

participants’ responses, more responses could be coded by another observer and allow

opportunities for observers to discuss and review participants’ responses.

Although no data were collected on participant’s classroom behavior, reading

interest and confidence in reading, Bill’s literacy instructor’s observation still suggested

the effects of HeadSprout Early Reading on participant’s engagement during daily

literacy instruction, reading interests and confidence. In addition, previous studies have

suggested the effects of literacy instruction on not only reading skills, but also attitudes

towards reading (Certo, 2004; Perfect, 2006). Future studies should examine not the just

effectiveness of HeadSprout Early Reading on reading skills, but also its effects on social/emotional aspects, such as learning attitude, confidence in reading, and classroom engagement.

The effects of social validity should not be overlooked when applying technology-based intervention for individuals with autism. Perception on the effectiveness of the intervention might greatly affect the practice and the effectiveness of the intervention (Meister, 2010). As it suggested in this study, even previous literature has advocated for developing oral communication skill and use of alternative communication boards, Tate and Emma’s literacy instructor still perceived the goal of

HeadSprout Early Reading as not suitable for them (Romski & Sevcik, 2005).

A meta-analysis (Pennington, 2010) on computer-based instruction focusing on

academic skills for individuals with autism included a total number of 15 studies.

However, only seven of them measured the social validity through either teacher, parents

or students’ questionnaire. Future studies should include a measurement for social

validity, gathering opinions from all individuals involved and impacted, with the focus on

the goal, procedures, and performance outcomes of HeadSprout Early Reading.

Although single-subject design allows detailed description of the implementation of the intervention, this study only included three individuals with autism (Horner et al.,

2015). When reviewing previous literature, only one study was conducted on the effectiveness of HeadSprout Early Reading on one individual with autism (Whitcomb,

Bass, & Luiselli, 2011). Although both studies have suggested some promising effects, more future studies should be conducted on individuals with autism to strength the validity and reliability of this study’s findings.

Implications for Practice

The results of this study were mixed and inconclusive with regards to the effectiveness of the HeadSprout Early Reading on a sample of kindergartens with autism acquisition of letter-sound correspondences. Results may have been mixed and inclusive partly due to the selection of participants for this study. Individuals with autism have demonstrated a wide range of cognitive abilities and social skills (Joseph, Tger-Flusberg,

& Lord, 2002), and HeadSprout Early Reading may not be appropriate reading instruction for all students with autism. Tyler et al.’s (2015) pilot study examined whether participants with severe disability require additional assistance to participate with HeadSprout Early Reading. The results of this study suggested that even students with severe disabilities (e.g., IDD) could access the program without any adaption to the implementation of the program as long as the participants with severe disability met the following criteria: (a) able to independently interact with computer for 1 minute; (b) able

to follow 1 or 2-steps instructions; and (c) able to verbally communicate and respond to

feedback. Considering the findings of this study, participants with autism who relied on

alternative communication boards and had not demonstrated ability to verbally

communicate found the program to be challenging.

Single-subject design of this study allowed detailed and tailored description of intervention implementation (Horner et al., 2005). During intervention phase, Tate and

Bill were provided with additional reinforcement due to their behavioral concern. The early reading specialist assisted in the process of identifying appropriate reinforcers for

them by providing their current Behavioral Intervention Plan along with their current

reinforcements at school. Once the reinforcement was implemented, a drastic and

immediate improvement in Bill’s performance was observed. Even though an upward

trend was observed before the reinforcement was implemented, the average performance

between episodes 1 through 7 (3.28) was much less than the average performance

between episode 8 through 16 (7.33). Therefore, the reinforcement did not only address

the behavioral concerns that prevented Bill from participating in the intervention, it also

has boosted his reading performances.

Including reinforcements was not an unusual strategy for individuals with

academic and cognitive difficulties. If this study had introduced the reinforcements at the beginning of the intervention phase, it could have avoided certain behavioral difficulties and yielded better learning outcomes earlier rather than later. A comprehensive review of technology-based academic interventions for students with autism highlighted the importance of reinforcement when implementing technology-based interventions

(Knight, McKissick, & Saunders, 2013). Therefore, when implementing technology-

based intervention for individuals with cognitive or academic challenges, educators

should consider incorporating a reinforcement system, especially when no reinforcement system was built into the technology-based intervention.

This study also illustrates the importance of logistics while relying on online intervention for students with autism. Technology and medial-based instructions have become prevalent with individuals with autism due to their difficulty with communication, complex cues and social learning (Cafiero, 2012). During several intervention sessions, the app, Learning A-Z, has stopped functioning when Internet connection was not stable. As the app stopped responding when participants clicked on the tablet, it led to feeling frustrated and throwing temper tantrum. This unpredictable disruption during the intervention sessions upset Bill and Tate, and caused Bill to have a temper tantrum. Considering that some students with autism responded poorly to disruption to routine, it is critical to make sure that interventions relying on technology function with minimal interruption.

Summary

The results of this study demonstrated that there were inconclusive findings with regards to the effects of the first 23 online episodes from HeadSprout Early Reading curriculum for this sample of students with autism. This study failed to support that the first 23 online episodes from HeadSprout Early Reading can help participants generalize acquired letter-sound correspondences ability to novel letter-sound correspondence. Last, this study failed to support that the first 23 online episodes from HeadSprout Early

Reading can help a sample of individuals with autism improve on their nonsense word fluency.

There is limited number of studies examining the effectiveness of HeadSprout

Early Reading on individuals with low-incident disabilities (Clarfield & Stoner, 2005;

Whitcomb et al., 2011). Previous studies have supported the effects on HeadSprout Early

Reading on individuals with autism and AHDH on sight word identification and oral reading fluency. However, due to the limited sample size, more studies should be conducted on the effects of HeadSprout Early Reading on individuals with autism.

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Appendix A: Elements taught across Headsprout Early Reading episodes

Episodes Phonetic elements and words Reading skills 1–5 /s/, /ee/, see, /v/, /n/, /an/, Vee, Segmenting, blending, decoding, word San, van, the reading, story reading, reading comprehension

6–11 /c/, /l/, /cl/, can, Lee, /sl/, /sn/, Segmenting, blending, capitalization, /fr/, /f/, /r/, /fl/, /cr/, Fran, feels, decoding, word reading, sound production fan, ran firming, sentence reading, story reading, reading comprehension

12–18 I, and (as word), out (as word), Word reading, sentence reading, reading /sp/, /pl/, /ip/, /p/, /pr/, flips, comprehension, segmenting, blending, sand, sleeps, Pip, / and / (as decoding, capitalization, story reading sound), plan, reef, feel, Clee

19–23 /sh/, /ish/, /out/ (as sound), Segmenting, sound production firming, shouts, fish, sheep, ship blending, decoding, word reading, punctuation, sentence reading, story reading, reading comprehension

24–30 /h/, old (as word), is, his, /old/ Segmenting, word reading, blending, (as sound), folds, hand, cold, decoding, sound production firming, hands, Scout, /sw/, /w/, /ing/, capitalization, sentence reading, reading wings, swing, fling, holds, comprehension, punctuation, story reading peel, wing

31–40 /er/, /t/, /tr/, /st/, her, plant, Segmenting, blending, decoding, word sweet, Trish, sweep, standing, reading, capitalization, sound production could, would, should, tree, firming, nonsense word decoding, sentence sting, feet, wish, sing, told, reading, reading comprehension, story hold, she, he reading

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Appendix B: Headsprout Placement Test

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Appendix C: Dissertation Recruitment Letter

January 15, 2018

Dear Parents:

A few of the graduate students at The Ohio State University, in either the Special Education program or the School Psychology program are working together to complete a study at Haugland Learning Center. The purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of Headsprout Early Reading on basic reading skills and its maintenance. The intervention will be implemented among kindergartens who are identified with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Your child will complete Headsprout Early Reading online curriculum for 20-30 minutes per session, for four/five sessions per week.

Immediately following the intervention, the graduate student will administer a brief phonemic awareness assessment and letter-sound correspondence assessment. The assessment will take less than 4 minutes to administer.

Your child’s identity will be kept confidential and will not be revealed in any report, and confidentiality will be maintained by using pseudonyms on all reports and data collection forms. We will not be asking you to access your child’s school records. We expect this study to continue for 8 to 12 weeks. Your child will be removed from their classroom placement while sessions are completed during the study.

Your consent is voluntary. If you would like your child to participate, please sign and return the attached parent consent form to your child’s teacher. If you allow your child to participate in the study, you may discontinue his or her participation at any time without penalty or loss of benefits.

Sincerely,

Graduate Students of The Ohio State University

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Appendix D: Parental Permissions

The Ohio State University Parental Permission For Child’s Participation in Research

Effects of Headsprout Early Reading Program on Students With Autism Study Title: Spectrum Disorder Researcher: Dr. Laurice Joseph

Sponsor: N/A

This is a parental permission form for research participation. It contains important information about this study and what to expect if you permit your child to participate. After reading this letter, if you consent for your child to participate, please sign this letter and return it to your child’s teacher.

Your child’s participation is voluntary. Please consider the information carefully. Feel free to discuss the study with your friends and family and to ask questions before making your decision whether or not to permit your child to participate. If you permit your child to participate, you will be asked to sign this form and will receive a copy of the form.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of Headsprout Early Reading Program on basic reading skills and its maintenance. This study will explore whether or not kindergartens with Autism can improve their reading skills while receiving Headsprout Early Reading instruction. Furthermore, this study will examine if there is a functional relationship between implementation of Headsprout Early Reading and student’s phonemic awareness skills. Additionally, this study is interested in evaluating the social validity of the Headsprout Early Reading.

Procedures/Tasks: Your child will read with a graduate student from Ohio State University for 20-30 minutes, on five occasions per week, using an online basic reading curriculum, Headsprout Early Reading. Immediately following the intervention, the graduate student will administer two brief basic reading assessments. The assessments will take less than 4 minutes to administer. Your child’s responses to the basic reading questions will be recorded for progress monitoring.

Duration: There are approximately 4 sessions during baseline, 40 sessions during intervention phase, and 5 sessions for maintenance phase. In total, there will be 49 sessions for each student. Each session may take approximately 30 minutes, and there are 5 students in total. The time required for each participant is 25 hours. 118

Risks and Benefits: There is minimal risk. Students may experience frustration with the tasks associated with the anaphoric cueing intervention. If your child does become frustrated, he/she will be redirected to a different activity or take a break from the intervention. Potential benefits to your child are improved reading comprehension skills and more confidence in his/her reading skills.

Confidentiality: Efforts will be made to keep your child’s study-related information confidential. However, there may be circumstances where this information must be released. For example, personal information regarding your child’s participation in this study may be disclosed if required by state law. Also, your child’s records may be reviewed by the following groups (as applicable to the research): • Office for Human Research Protections or other federal, state, or international regulatory agencies; • The Ohio State University Institutional Review Board or Office of Responsible Research Practices;

Incentives: No incentives will be provided.

Participant Rights: You or your child may refuse to participate in this study without penalty or loss of benefits to which you are otherwise entitled. If you or your child is a student or employee at Ohio State, your decision will not affect your grades or employment status. Deciding whether to take part in the research project or not will have no effect on your relationship or your child’s relationship to the teacher in the classroom.

If you and your child choose to participate in the study, you may discontinue participation at any time without penalty or loss of benefits. By signing this form, you do not give up any personal legal rights your child may have as a participant in this study.

An Institutional Review Board responsible for human subjects research at The Ohio State University reviewed this research project and found it to be acceptable, according to applicable state and federal regulations and University policies designed to protect the rights and welfare of participants in research.

Contacts and Questions: For questions, concerns, or complaints about the study you may contact Laurice Joseph (614) 688-4992.

For questions about your child’s rights as a participant in this study or to discuss other study-related concerns or complaints with someone who is not part of the research team,

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you may contact Ms. Sandra Meadows in the Office of Responsible Research Practices at 1-800-678-6251.

If your child is harmed as a result of participating in this study or for questions about a study-related harm, you may contact Dr. Laurice Joseph (614-688-4992; [email protected]).

Signing the parental permission form

I have read (or someone has read to me) this form and I am aware that I am being asked to provide permission for my child to participate in a research study. I have had the opportunity to ask questions and have had them answered to my satisfaction. I voluntarily agree to permit my child to participate in this study.

I am not giving up any legal rights by signing this form. I will be given a copy of this form.

Printed name of subject

Printed name of person authorized to provide permission for Signature of person authorized to provide permission for subject subject

AM/PM Relationship to the subject Date and time

Investigator/Research Staff

I have explained the research to the participant or his/her representative before requesting the signature(s) above. There are no blanks in this document. A copy of this form has been given to the participant or his/her representative.

Printed name of person obtaining consent Signature of person obtaining consent

AM/PM Date and time

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Appendix E: Letter-Sound Correspondence Flash Cards

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Appendix F: Phonemes and Phonetic Elements for Each Group Episode

Episode Elements Words

1-5 an, ee, n, s, v San, see, the, van, Vee

6-11 c, cl, cr, f, fl, fr, l, r, sl, sn can, fan, feels, Fran, Lee,

ran

12-18 ip, p, pl, pr, sp and, Clee, feel, flips, I, out,

Pip, plan, reef, sand, sleeps

19-23 ish, out, sh fish, sheep, ship, shouts

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Appendix G: DIBELS NWF Grade K Administration Sheet

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Appendix H: Teacher Satisfaction Questionnaire

Teacher Satisfaction Questionnaire Please rate the following statement in a scale of 1 to 5. With 1 being does not agree at all, and 5 being can not agree more. 1. There is an improvement in my student's’ reading skills.

1 2 3 4 5

2. My student enjoys reading more than before.

1 2 3 4 5

3. My student reads more frequently than before.

1 2 3 4 5

4. I noted an increase in my student’ oral vocabulary.

1 2 3 4 5

5. My student’s ability to read independently has improved.

1 2 3 4 5

6. I believe the Headsprout Early Reading is an appropriate reading instruction for my student.

1 2 3 4 5

7. I would recommend this reading program if my friend’s student experiences difficulties with reading.

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1 2 3 4 5

8. My student’s ability to sound out words has improved.

1 2 3 4 5

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Appendix H: Student Satisfaction Survey

Questionnaire - Student Satisfaction Survey

1. Do you like the Headsprout Early Reading program?

2. Have you learned a lot from the Headsprout Early program?

Some A Lot Not

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3. Do you like to read?

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Appendix J: On-Task Behavior Momentary Time Sampling

Momentary Time Sampling

Observer: Date:

Student: Minute :10 :20 :30 :40 :50 :60 Total 1 2 3 4

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Appendix K: HeadSprout Lesson Implementation Fidelity Checklist

Name: Date:

Check if completed

Researcher walked student to the separate office in the building. A student sits at a desk with the researcher with an Ipad. The researcher allows the student to complete the lesson as independently as possible. The researcher redirects off-task behaviors. The researcher prompts the student to get back on task/ provides assistance if necessary. The student completes a lesson (if the student does not complete a lesson, it is continued the following session) The researcher presents Headsprout cards and Nonsense word fluency probe at the end of episode. When student becomes hard to focus, the researcher walks student back to the classroom.

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Appendix I: Data Collection Fidelity Checklist

Headsprout Flashcards + Nonsense Word Fluency Probe Integrity Checklist Name: Date: Instructional Steps Checkmark if complete

The researcher randomly picks 10 phonetic Headsprout cards prior to presenting the first target. The researcher tells the student “What is this sound.” The researcher presents the first target (flashcard). The researcher presents the next flashcard following the participant’s response until the participant has responded to all of the flashcards in the deck. The researcher prompts student to respond when student is not focused. The researcher provides feedback (i.e. “good job”/”high five” when student provides correct response) and provides accurate response when student makes a mistake or fails to produce a sound. The researcher records the targets responded to correctly. The researcher presents the Nonsense fluency probe after the Headsprout cards. The researcher starts the 1- minute timer when presenting the Nonsense fluency probe. The researcher records the number of correct responses for the nonsense word fluency probe. The researcher provides feedback based on DIBELS

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instruction. The researcher does not allow the participant to see the timing.

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