Effectiveness of intervention with visual templates targeting tense and plural agreement in copula and auxiliary structures in school-aged children with complex needs: a pilot study.

This pilot study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of a school-based intervention using visual strategies for improving accurate use of auxiliary and copula marking in singular and plural, past and present tense by students with moderate learning disability and complex needs. Eleven students, aged 10-14 years, in a specialist school based in the UK, participated in the study. A within participants design was used which included testing at baseline, pre- and post-intervention to consider progress with intervention as compared with progress during a baseline period of similar length. The experimental intervention consisted of eight, bi-weekly, 20 minute sessions, over a four week period, in small groups, in a classroom setting. Half of the participants focused on the auxiliary and half on the copula, but all were tested on both. Techniques included the use of visual templates and rules (the Shape Coding system) to support explicit instruction. Eight participants made greater progress during the intervention term than during the baseline term and this was significant at a group level (d = 0.92). A comparison of progress to zero was not significant during the baseline period (d = 0.15) but was during the intervention period (d = 1.07). Progress also appeared to generalise from the targeted to non-targeted structure. This pilot study therefore provides preliminary evidence that older students with complex needs can make progress with morphology when intervention includes explicit instruction and visual templates and that generalisation may be observed.