JCPSLP July 2014_Vol16_no2

Table 3. Group performance (with SD) pre- and post-intervention by prep class

Prep Class 3 (PC3) Intervention Pre

Measures

Prep Class 1 (PC1)

Prep Class 2 (PC2) Business as usual Pre

Post

Post

Pre

Post

RAPT-G*

15.4 (4.7)

25.6 (3.2)

11.7 (4.3)

21.7 (3.7)

7.9 (5.6)

18.5 (6.5)

RAPT-I#

25.4 (5.1)

34.6 (2.4)

20.7 (6.3)

31.5 (4)

19.5 (7.2)

29.3 (4.6)

SPAT-R*

31 (6.8)

12.1 (6.9)

20.3 (7.3)

9.7 (5.8)

22.1 (6.6)

Letter ID*

33 (19)

49 (5)

4.3 (5.1)

34 (21.4)

6.7 (15.2)

37.1 (14)

Boehm*

33 (7.2)

43.3 (3.8)

22 (7.5)

37.1 (6.4)

19 (7.6)

35.3 (6.6)

SQ*

25 (5.7)

20 (5.8)

18.7 (6.7)

SC*

5.9 (1.5)

4.3 (1.6)

4.5 (1.6)

UTT@

11.6 (4)

9.1 (5.1)

8.7 (4.4)

NDW*

45 (14)

32 (17)

30 (15)

GA*

82 (14)

66 (21)

60.9 (20.9)

MLU-M*

7.6 (1.2)

6.6 (1.3)

6.2 (1.3)

Note: RAPT: Renfrew Action Picture Test (Renfrew, 2010), Grammar and Information subtests; SPAT-R: Sutherland Phonological Awareness Test – Revised (Neilson, 2003). Boehm-3: Boehm Test of Basic Concepts – 3 (Boehm, 2001); SQ = story quality (max score: 40); SC = story comprehension (max score: 8); UTT = number of utterances used to retell the story; NDW = number of different words; GA = grammatical accuracy in percent grammatically accurate utterances; MLU-M = mean length of utterance in morphemes. * PC1 performed significantly better (p < .05) than PC2 or PC3. No significant differences between PC2 and PC3. # Pre-intervention PC1 performed significantly better than PC2 and PC3. There were no significant differences between PC2 and PC3. Post-intervention PC1 performed better than PC3. There were no significant differences between PC1 and PC2. @ There were no differences between the groups on this measure (p = .102).

sensitive progress measure. Where appropriate N 2 (eta squared) values were calculated as an estimate of the effect size (Vacha-Haase & Thompson, 2004). Results Comparison of the three classes pre- intervention Analyses of Variance (ANOVA), with post-hoc analyses (Bonferroni), were used to investigate class differences pre-intervention. As shown in Table 3, PC1 outperformed PC2 and PC3 on all measures (i.e., RAPT-G, RAPT-I, Letter ID, and Boehm-3) ( p < .05) prior to the intervention. There were no differences in performance on any of the measures between PC2 and PC3 ( p > .05). Change in performance following intervention We investigated the change in performance within and between the three prep classes to determine (a) if the students made significant progress, and (b) if there were differences between the intervention class and the two control classes. The following measures were analysed pre- and post-intervention: Letter identification, RAPT-G, RAPT-I, and the Boehm-3 (see Table 3 and Figure 1). Using repeated measures (RM) ANOVAs with post-hoc analyses (Bonferroni), the following results were found: • Letter ID: There was a significant effect for time ( p < .001), but no interaction effect for Time x Class ( p = .068). These results indicate all classes made significant, but similar progress in letter identification. • RAPT-G and RAPT-I: there was a significant effect for time on both measures ( p <.001) indicating a significant

improvement over time. There was no interaction effect for Time x Class on RAPT-G ( p = .746) or RAPT-I ( p = .629), indicating all classes made similar significant progress in their ability to produce grammatical utterances containing relevant information in response to 10 picture prompts. • Boehm-3: there was a significant effect for time ( p < .001), indicating a significant improvement for all students. There was a significant effect for Time x Class F(2,50) = 73.27, p = .008. As displayed in Figure 1, PC2 and PC3 made significantly more progress than PC1. There were no ceiling effects for PC1. When inspecting the standard scores, however, it was found that 60% of the children in PC2 and 67% of the students in PC3 still scored below the 25th percentile. Only 15% of the students in PC1 scored < 25th percentile. • SPAT-R: change in performance was determined for PC2 and PC3 (only post-intervention results are available for PC1). Using a RM (Class x Time) ANOVA, both classes showed a significant improvement in phonological awareness; however, PC3 showed a significantly greater improvement on the SPAT-R than PC2 F(1,40) = 5.541, p = .024), with a medium effect size ( N 2 =.122), indicating this difference would be noticeable in clinical practice (Portney & Watkins, 2000). Story retelling and comprehension performance post-intervention The story comprehension and retelling task was only administered at the end of the year, following intervention. As displayed in Table 3, PC1 significantly outperformed the students in PC2 and PC3 on all measures, except the number of utterances used to retell the story. There were no group differences between PC2 and PC3.

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JCPSLP Volume 16, Number 2 2014

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