Study highlights need for high-quality professional learning to support more inclusive teaching practices

PhD researcher Haley Tancredi from QUT's School of Early Childhood and Inclusive Education, Professor Linda Graham and Dr Callula Killingly, from QUT's Centre for Inclusive Education, identified 59 Year 10 students out of a cohort of 234 with difficulties consistent with ADHD and DLD for a new study published in The Australian Education Researcher.

"All 59 students demonstrated difficulties with vocabulary, retell, working memory, and regulation of their alertness and processing speed," Ms Tancredi, a former speech pathologist and now lecturer in the School of Early Childhood and Inclusive Education, said.

"However, almost three quarters of the 59 students had never previously been identified as having either language or attention difficulties.

"These students are often "described as 'hiding in plain sight' on data walls, in lower academic streams and support classes, and in vocational pathways and Flexible Learning Options."

However, Professor Graham said the answer was not to improve identification but to improve the accessibility of teaching so that their needs were better met in the classroom.

"Recent research has shown that anticipating and removing linguistic, procedural, and visual complexities from assessment task sheets improves achievement for all students, including for those with disabilities affecting their language and information processing," Professor Graham said.

As a first step towards achieving this in classroom teaching, Ms Tancredi interviewed the 59 students about their experiences in the all too important subject of English which is compulsory from Prep to Grade 12.

"We found that of the 59 students who took part in interviews only five said that English was 'easy' and six said it was 'hard'. Most students said English was 'alright', but one in five of these students had 'failed' English in their most recent report card."

Ms Tancredi next asked each student why they thought English was easy, alright or hard.

"More than two thirds of students said some teachers talked too much, with some describing how this negatively affected their ability to sustain focus, attention and engagement.

"For example, one student said. 'It makes me like 'Oh, this is so… why are you taking so long? Can we actually do the work?' And another said: 'Yes, uh, uh my brain leaves the room'."

Dr Killingly, an expert in memory and cognition, said "it's unsurprising, given what we know about the limitations of working memory, that the most popular response to 'what happens when teachers talk too much?' is that students start thinking of other things, followed by their brain 'shuts down'."

Professor Graham said that when the students were asked about what made an excellent teacher, they identified a range of teaching practices that support comprehension and working memory.

"In the classroom, these practices include the use of short, simple sentences, relevant concrete examples, economical explanations, developmentally appropriate vocabulary, and explicit teaching of new words and specialist terms," Ms Tancredi said.

"Other important practices include regular and effective checks of student comprehension, catching students' attention prior to issuing instructions, intentional pauses to allow processing time, regular repetition of main points, and clear and well-aligned visual supports."

Ms Tancredi's doctoral study investigates the impact of teachers' use of these strategies on the experiences and engagement of students with language and attentional difficulties.

"The Accessible Assessment ARC Linkage Project team has developed a program of professional learning to help classroom teachers adopt these strategies and improve the accessibility of their teaching," she said.

Improving the accessibility of subject English for students with language and/or attention difficulties was published in the Australian Educational Researcher.

(Image from left: Haley Tancredi, Professor Linda Graham, Dr Callula Killingly.

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