Peer Reviewed Literature

For each of the items listed below, you may read the abstract of teach titled article, or click on the link to be taken to a site in which you can purchase the full article.

1. http://www.jstor.org/pss/1511342
Word Processing with Speech Synthesis and Word Prediction: Effects on Dialogue Journal Writing of Students with Learning Disabilities
ABSTRACT:
Five students, ages 9 and 10, with learning disabilities and severe writing problems wrote in dialogue journals to their teacher. They used a standard word processor during baseline phases and a word processor with speech synthesis and word prediction features during treatment phases. The special features had a strong effect on the legibility and spelling of written dialogue journal entries for four of the five students. During baseline, the writing of these four students ranged from 55% to 85% legible words and 42% to 75% correctly spelled words. All four increased their percentage of both legible and correctly spelled words into the 90-100% range.

2. http://ldx.sagepub.com/content/29/4/344.abstract
Using Technology to Enhance the Writing Processes of Students with Learning Disabilities
ABSTRACT:
This article reviews the ways that computers can support writing by students with learning disabilities, with an emphasis on applications that go beyond word processing. Following an overview of research on word processing is a discussion of software that assists with the basic processes of transcription and sentence generation, including spelling checkers, speech synthesis, word prediction, and grammar and style checkers. Next, applications that support the cognitive processes of planning are reviewed, including prompting programs, outlining and semantic mapping software, and multimedia applications. Finally, the use of computer networks to support collaboration and communication with diverse audiences is addressed.

3. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1540-5826.00039/abstract
Effects of Hand-Drawn and Computer-Generated Concept Mapping on the Expository Writing of Middle School Students with Learning Disabilities
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of two forms of concept mapping, hand-drawn and computer-generated, on the descriptive essay writing of middle-level students with learning disabilities. Twelve eighth-grade students composed descriptive essays under three conditions: no-map support, hand-map support, and computer-map support. The essays were compared on four measures: number of words, syntactic maturity, number of T-units, and holistic writing scores. Writing attitude was also examined. Results showed that student descriptive essays produced in the hand- and computer-mapping conditions demonstrated significant increases above baseline writing samples on number of words, number of T-units, and holistic writing scores. Carry-over effects were observed in the no-mapping condition and provide an indication that students may have acquired writing skills that generalized into their essay writing when not using maps. Results showed that students’ attitudes toward writing were significantly more positive in the computer-mapping condition when compared to no-mapping and hand-mapping conditions.