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An investigation into the developmental differences between reading delayed and successful reading students

University of British Columbia

Some school psychologists have made a practice of using adverse incidents in a child's early development as the basis for diagnosing children's reading difficulties and attributing those incidents to a possible organic base. However, the previous research has not been wholely supportive of a link between developmental history concerns and the acquisition of reading related skills. Thus, this research was intended to determine which incidents in the reported developmental history provided the best predictors of later reading difficulty. The developmental history form from the U.B.C. Education Clinic was used as the data gathering instrument and requested parental information about the child's family background, pregnacy and birthing factors, acquisition of developmental milestones, and health history. This instrument was chosen as it is uniformly completed by the U.B.C. school psychology students. This research was also intended to determine which areas of the form were the most effective in predicting later reading difficulties. Obtained samples of successful reading students (n=28) and delayed readers (n=35) were compared in terms of the significant incidents reported in their developmental histories. Results did substantiate some of the previous research in terms of the family background characteristics, pregnancy and birth concerns, and developmental milestone profile, previously associated with later reading difficulty. No significant incidents were noted in the health history section though it was concluded that valuable information appeared in all sections of the current developmental history form. However, this research design did not allow for predictive statistics as initially intended due to the qualitative nature of the data collected.

Text

2011-01-26

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/30855

Education

University of British Columbia

Graduate