The Effects of Procedural Facilitation on the Story Composition of Learning Disabled Students

The purpose of this study was to investigate both quantitative and qualitative differences in narrative composition among learning disabled students as a function of the amount of procedural facilitation provided. Procedural facilitation included story grammar cue cards, verbal reminders for character development, and a metacognitive check-off procedure. No significant differences were detected between the two experimental groups, which differed only with respect to verbal reminders for developing characters. Both experimental groups, however, differed significantly from the control group in the quality of stories produced. The findings support the assumption that, though most learning disabled students have acquired basic story schema knowledge, they may require a systematic procedure to assist in accessing story schemata during narrative composition tasks.