Individual Differences in Learning Disabled Students' Use of Contextual Cuing
This study was designed to examine individual differences among learning disabled poor readers in their use of contextual cuing to aid word identification. Words were presented to the subjects in both connected text and in isolation. The study employed a reversal design in which half the subjects read the words in the following order: context, isolation, context, isolation (ABAB). The other half of the subjects were presented with the conditions in the opposite order. Subject errors in each of the four conditions were recorded. Group statistical analysis found a significant effect favoring context over isolation. Subjects made fewer errors in the context than in the isolation conditions. An individual analysis of the subject errors using the reversal design, however, revealed that three of the subjects made consistently fewer errors in isolation than in context. This effect indicates that for some students, at least, context does not facilitate word identification.