The use of induced imagery to increase reading and listening comprehension for learning disabled students

The purpose of this study was to investigate the practical significance of the use of an induced imagery strategy to increase the reading and listening comprehension of children with visual-spatial skills superior to verbal skills as demonstrated on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised. The subjects were 9 to 11 year old boys identified as "Learning Disabled" by certified assessment specialists in the Metropolitan Nashville School System.

Subjects completed a paired-associate task proposed in past research to discriminate between students whose reading comprehension skills would increase with a visual imagery strategy. In addition, a single subject, multiple baseline design was used to demonstrate the effect of practice in generating descriptive visual images while completing either a reading or listening comprehension task.

Results suggest no significant effect for the imagery strategy for the reading comprehension task and only a possible effect for the listening comprehension task. Observational data however, suggested that the reading task was less compatible with an imagery strategy than the listening task. The paired-associate task was not a predictive instrument for these students.

Possible variables which might account for the differential effect of imagery with listening and reading comprehension were discussed.