Zeitschrift für Down-Syndrom und Chromosomenanomalien
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Investigating Oral Reading Miscues Produced by Students with Down Syndrome: A Descriptive Study

Pelatti Yeager C and Guevara Sandra

Objective: Individuals with Down syndrome (DS) exhibit difficulties with oral language and reading development. Research is needed to understand the language and reading connections of students with DS to develop effective interventions that ensure academic success in this population. The purpose of this present study was to investigate the oral language and reading processes of six students (mean age: 16; 3) with DS by analysing the oral miscues produced while reading a storybook. Method: Using a miscue analysis approach, students with DS independently read a storybook out loud and then were asked to retell the story. Oral reading miscues were analysed within the context of the sentence and the entire text to determine semantic and syntactic acceptability, meaning change, correction and graphic and phonemic similarity. In addition, thematic analysis was incorporated to provide an in-depth analysis of the miscue data. Results: Based on the miscue analysis data, students exhibited higher meaning construction scores as compared to grammatical relations scores (63.67% vs. 46%) and higher graphic similarity scores as compared to phonemic similarity scores (66.34% vs. 60.67%). Using a thematic analysis procedure, students with DS rarely selfcorrected miscues, exhibited relative strength with meaning but difficulty with syntax and relied on visual support while reading. Conclusion: The present study adds to the existing body of literature about the language and reading profile of students with DS by including analysis of their oral reading miscues and provides implications on intervention techniques that may be beneficial with this population.