University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Open Access Dissertations 9-2013 Treatment of Foundational Reading Skills through Telepractice and Face-to-Face Environments: Single Subject Design Mary Beth Hetherton University of Massachusetts Amherst, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/open_access_dissertations Part of the Communication Sciences and Disorders Commons Recommended Citation Hetherton, Mary Beth, "Treatment of Foundational Reading Skills through Telepractice and Face-to-Face Environments: Single Subject Design" (2013). Open Access Dissertations. 802. https://doi.org/10.7275/mjwb-vp70 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/open_access_dissertations/802 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Access Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. TREATMENT OF FOUNDATIONAL READING SKILLS THROUGH TELEPRACTICE AND FACE- TO-FACE ENVIRONMENTS: SINGLE SUBJECT DESIGN A Dissertation Presented by MARY BETH HETHERTON Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY September 2013 Department of Communication Disorders © Copyright by Mary Beth Hetherton 2013 All Rights Reserved TREATMENT OF FOUNDATIONAL READING SKILLS THROUGH TELEPRACTICE AND FACE- TO-FACE ENVIRONMENTS: SINGLE SUBJECT DESIGN A Dissertation Presented by MARY BETH HETHERTON Approved as to style and content by: __________________________________________________________ Patricia A. Mercaitis, Chair __________________________________________________________ Elena Zaretsky, Member __________________________________________________________ Mary V. Andrianopoulos, Member __________________________________________________________ Mary Lynn Boscardin, Member ____________________________________________ Jane A. Baran, Department Chair Department of Communication Disorders DEDICATION To all of my family and friends who loved, supported, and encouraged me during this process. I could have never done this without all of you. To my parents, you have always been there. To my children, Jaclyn, Billy and Carolyn this is a lesson that with love, support, perseverance and hard work you can have your dream. To Jimmy, your love and patience helped me finish what I started. To Katie, I did it with you in my heart, miss you. Thanks and love to you all. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To my advisor, Dr. Pat Mercaitis, her guidance has been present from day one, thank you. To Elena Zaretsky, whose insight, wisdom and constant support through the years allowed me to work through the completion of this project. Thank you to Drs. Mary Andrianopoulos and Mary Lynn Boscardin for agreeing to serve on my committee adding so much to this project. To the Carroll family, this research all started from my work with Billy. Thanks, to the SH Community for opening their doors and full support to this project resulting in its completion. v ABSTRACT TREATMENT OF FOUNDATIONAL READING SKILLS THROUGH TELEPRACTICE AND FACE- TO-FACE ENVIRONMENTS: SINGLE SUBJECT DESIGN SEPTEMBER 2013 MARY BETH HETHERTON, B.S., NORTHEASTERN UNIVERISTY M.S., EMERSON COLLEGE Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Patricia A. Mercaitis Service delivery and the access to specialized instructions to consumers, encounters many barriers within the profession of speech-language pathology. This state of affairs is largely due to the disparate distribution of speech language services (ASHA, 2005). This restricted access, or an inability to access services, is a result of a number of factors, which include lack of clinicians, insufficient number of facilities in geographic area, and transportation issues (ASHA, 2004e). As a result, students who require specialized reading instruction are not afforded the opportunity to access the necessary treatment. It is essential that the literacy needs of all children be addressed, including those who require specialized instruction (Foorman & Torgesen, 2001; Allington, 1994). Technology, specifically telepractice, is a potential solution to address this dilemma. The purpose of this study is to investigate the reliability and validity of systematic multisensory reading treatment for students who have been identified with a delay in foundational reading skills, addressing foundational reading skills via an internet-based video conferencing system. The results will establish the groundwork for the efficacy, reliability, and validity of internet-based video conferencing as a means of service delivery for foundational reading skills. The foundational reading skills targeted in this study are letter naming knowledge (LNK), letter sound knowledge (LSN) and decoding. Keywords: letter naming, letter sound, decoding, telepractice, service delivery vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................................... v ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................................................... vi LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................................ ix LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................................ x CHAPTER I. PROVIDING MULTISENSORY READING TREATMENT FOR FOUNDATIONAL READING SKILLS THROUGH TELEPRACTICE ............................................................................. 1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 1 The Efficacy of Telepractice as a Viable Service Delivery Method to Address Foundational Reading Skills ................................................................................................. 5 Examination of Foundational Reading Skills ...................................................... 5 A Review of Multisensory Explicit Treatment of Foundational Reading Skills ................ 11 A Review of Telepractice Studies in Speech Language Pathology – Treatment ................ 18 A Review of Telepractice Studies in Speech Language Pathology – Evaluation .............. 22 A Review of Telepractice Studies in Education ................................................................. 26 Challenge, Objective and Intent ......................................................................................... 30 Problem Statement ............................................................................................. 30 Research Purpose ............................................................................................... 31 Hypotheses ......................................................................................................... 31 II. METHODOLOGY .......................................................................................................................... 32 Research Design .................................................................................................................. 32 Participants ......................................................................................................................... 34 Setting ................................................................................................................................. 38 Equipment/Training ............................................................................................................ 39 Variables ............................................................................................................................. 40 Independent Variables ........................................................................................ 40 Dependent Variables .......................................................................................... 40 Procedure ............................................................................................................................ 40 Informal Assessment .......................................................................................... 40 Baseline Phase ................................................................................................... 41 Intervention Phase .............................................................................................. 42 Intervention Procedures ..................................................................................... 43 Validity and Reliability Measures ...................................................................... 45 Reliability ........................................................................................................... 45 Statistical Analysis ............................................................................................. 46 vii III. RESULTS....................................................................................................................................... 49 Results ................................................................................................................................ 49 Individual Participant Results ............................................................................................. 49 Participant One ..................................................................................................