Written Expression of Students With and Without Learning Disabilities
- 1 November 1989
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Journal of Learning Disabilities
- Vol. 22 (9), 561-568
- https://doi.org/10.1177/002221948902200908
Abstract
This study compares the written expression of 48 students with learning disabilities (LD) and 48 normally achieving (NA) students (Grades 4, 8, and 11). Productivity, syntactic maturity, vocabulary, and mechanics were examined using writing samples obtained in response to a standard stimulus. Results indicate that, compared to their NA peers, students with learning disabilities write fewer words and sentences, write more words per sentence, produce fewer words with seven letters or more and fewer sentence fragments, and have a higher percentage of capitalization and spelling errors. No group differences were found for the number of T-units produced or the number of morphemes per T-unit. Comparison of group differences at each grade level and differences by groups across the grades reveals persistent written expression difficulties and signals a need for a careful review of current instructional practices and how they can be improved.Keywords
This publication has 8 references indexed in Scilit:
- Children's Ability to Write Stories as a Function of Variation in Task, Age, and Developmental LevelLearning Disability Quarterly, 1987
- Sensitivity to Text Structure in Reading and Writing: A Comparison Between Learning Disabled and Non-Learning Disabled StudentsLearning Disability Quarterly, 1987
- An Analysis of Errors and Strategies in the Expository Writing of Learning Disabled StudentsRemedial and Special Education, 1987
- Story Composition by Learning Disabled, Reading Disabled, and Normal ChildrenLearning Disability Quarterly, 1985
- Disorders of Written Communication: An Instructional Priority for LD StudentsJournal of Learning Disabilities, 1985
- Effects of Discourse Mode on the Syntactic Complexity of Learning Disabled Students' Written ExpressionLearning Disability Quarterly, 1984
- Performance of Learning Disabled and Low Achieving Secondary Students on Formal Features of a Paragraph-Writing TaskLearning Disability Quarterly, 1981
- A Comparison of Components of Written Expression Abilities in Learning Disabled and Non-Learning Disabled Students at Three Grade LevelsLearning Disability Quarterly, 1980