The Differential Effects of Literary Genre Interventions on Literacy and Psychological Outcomes for Students with Special Educational Needs: A Mixed-Methods Quasi-Experimental Study

Abstract

Children and young people with a recognised Special Educational Need (SEN) – particularly where they have a problem with literacy attainment – and those with an identified difficulty with literacy attainment and autism and/or an identified difficulty with intellectual disability (ID) remain vulnerable to literacy attainment difficulties and psychological wellbeing difficulties. Although it is suggested and accepted that Literature (narratives, poetry and drama) are essential to the structured literacy model, the literature in use as an intervention tool has yet to be fully explored. This quasi-experimental study with mixed research methods aims at studying the impact of three different genre based interventions (adapted narrative fiction, poetry reading and writing, and drama/role play) on reading comprehension, self-efficacy, emotion recognition, expressive language skills, and social-communication skills of 120 SEN students categorized by three diagnoses. The method used in the study is pre-test post-test design based on Vygotsky's sociocultural learning theory (Vygotsky, 1978), Social Emotional Learning (SEL) (Durlak et al., 2011) and complimentary to the pre-test post-test study, qualitative classroom observation was conducted and semi structured interview techniques were used. Preliminary results show that the three genres can all be used to make significant gains, but can be implemented differently: narrative fiction to increase reading comprehension skills and self-efficacy; poetry to develop skills in recognising emotion and expressive language skills (Asaro-Saddler et al., 2019); drama/role play to develop social communication skills (Weber, 2020). The study offers practical evidence for the need for content focused, holistic intervention in special education and implications in teacher education for the inclusive classroom.