The Question

Can implementation of auditory processing strategies address literacy and behavior problems in at-risk students?

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The Context
Much of the literature on student achievement now focuses on the utility of helping students at risk of failure before significant problems develop. Early intervention programs such as Head Start are structured to provide social and academic supports to at-risk students so that they can enter school ready to learn. Research on special education has directed significant attention to the misidentification of students as learning-disabled. Research also points to strategies that can mitigate referrals that may be the result of instructional and behavioral issues rather than actual learning disabilities. Addressing behavior and achievement problems after students have already experienced significant failure is costly and largely ineffective. By the time intervention strategies rise to the intensity of retention and summer school, research suggests that--at best--half of the students will catch up to their peers.

Two key issues across much of this research are literacy development and classroom behavior. Irrespective of academic ability, students who exhibit poor behavior are more likely to be retained in grade or referred for special education supports than are their peers who function within behavioral expectations. Similarly, students with poor literacy skills exhibit significant behavioral and academic problems. Strategies that address such issues early in a student's educational experience may have significant positive effects on behavior and achievement.

The Details
Kathy Rowe, Ken Rowe, and Jan Pollard conducted the study highlighted in this issue of ResearchBrief (see below for full citation). In the study, the researchers focused on the auditory processing1 (AP) skills of children referred to Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital for assessment of behavior problems and low achievement in literacy. According to the authors, children referred for some learning disabilities (including ADD and AD/HD) and problems with "listening" frequently exhibit problems with AP, even when hearing assessments showed no disabilities. Children with AP difficulties may have trouble following directions, or "listening," as well as reaching developmental and literacy milestones, but they are frequently diagnosed only after sustained patterns of poor achievement. For many of these students, relatively simple interventions that change the way verbal information is presented in the classroom have been shown to be effective. Training teachers to present verbal information in a manner that makes it accessible to students with functional AP difficulties, then, could make a significant difference in reducing special education referrals and strengthening literacy skills.

Expanding on a study of auditory processing initiated in 1999, the researchers gathered AP data on 10,126 Australian primary students (ages 4.7–12 years) for digit span, sentence length, behavior (attentiveness), and literacy achievement. Additional information on year or grade level, gender, language background, and students' reading ability was also collected. In the first phase of the study, teachers in 34 schools received professional development training in three areas: normative development of children's auditory capacity, audiological assessment, and auditory processing-oriented classroom management and intervention strategies. Teachers in 23 reference schools were used as a control group and were not offered any of the professional development experiences.

The professional development training included five specific auditory processing support strategies:

Attract the child's attention.
Speak slowly, using short sentences, eye contact, and visual cues (wait for students to comply with instructions).
Pause between sentences and repeat when necessary.
Use visual cues (such as blank looks) and repeat instructions as needed.
Create hearing, listening, and compliance routines for students.

To accommodate wide variation of students' ages within a grade level, the researchers focused on age-specific measures rather than strict grade-level relationships. As expected, the researchers found that as students aged, their scores on auditory processing components (digit span and sentence length) increased. At certain levels of complexity, however, students were unable to accurately process sentences. For example, children in the age range 4.7–6 were unable to accurately process sentences longer than 9 words; in the 6–7 age group, longer than 10 words; in the 7–8 age group, longer than 11 words; in the 8–9 age group, longer than 12 words; and in the 9–10 age group, they were unable to accurately process sentences longer than 13 words. As highlighted by the researchers, such specific findings have important implications for pedagogical training and the manner in which teachers communicate with their students.

The initial AP screening accurately identified approximately half of the students who showed low literacy achievement at the end of their first year of schooling, 61 percent of the children exhibiting poor literacy or attentiveness at the end of their second year, and 66 percent at the end of their fourth year. Overall, children with low scores on the initial AP screen were three times as likely to show poor literacy achievement and have inattentive behaviors than their higher-scoring peers, suggesting that such screening may be useful for directing resources to students in need of support.

Students in classes where teachers received professional development in AP outscored their peers in the control schools at statistically significant levels (at the p=0.05 level). This pattern was observed in study years 1–4 and across measures of literacy and attentiveness. After adjusting for various demographic traits (age, gender, language, and initial achievement), the researchers found a positive effect of almost one-third of a standard deviation in literacy achievement for students of teachers who had the AP professional development.

The Bottom Line
Adjusting instruction to address children's auditory processing capacity can have a significant positive effect on student literacy and attentiveness, particularly in the early years of schooling. Screening of student auditory processing abilities can help identify students at risk for lower literacy and inattentive behaviors, allowing for application of early intervention strategies to address literacy problems before they become entrenched.

Who's Affected?
This study focused on Australian children in the first seven years of school (grades K–6).

Caveats
Although attention to auditory processing capacity and teacher ability to address students' AP levels are important, more examination of the interaction between a focus on AP and student learning and behavior would be useful, particularly regarding the students who scored poorly on the initial AP assessment but ultimately did not show lower literacy achievement or inattentive behaviors. More specific examination of the findings related to sentence length would also be useful. For example, are there negative effects on literacy or attentiveness if teachers reduce sentence length too much?

The Study
Rowe, Kathy, Rowe, Ken, & Pollard, J. (2004). Literacy, behavior and auditory processing: Building "fences" at the top of the "cliff" in preference to "ambulance services" at the bottom. Background paper and invited address presented at the 2004 annual conference of the Australian Council for Educational Research, Adelaide, SA.

Other Resources

The Royal Children's Hospital

Australian Council for Educational Research


Endnote
1 Auditory processing (AP) refers to an individual's ability to hold, sequence, and process accurately what is heard. It can be negatively affected by either auditory acuity problems (hearing) or functional difficulties (non-hearing-related processing problems). AP is determined by evaluating the ability to recall pieces of auditory information (digit span) and complex sentences (sentence length) accurately.