Peer-reviewed article
A Systematic Review of Academic Discourse Interventions for School-Aged Children With Language-Related Learning Disabilities
Amy K. Peterson, Carly Fox, Megan Israelsen ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This systematic review examined 33 studies on interventions designed to improve narrative and expository discourse (structured writing and speaking) skills in school-aged children with language-related learning disabilities, aged 9-14 years. The review found that explicit instruction with visual supports and student-generated materials showed moderate effectiveness within treatment settings but had limited generalization to other contexts. The most effective interventions involved 180-300 minutes of instruction over 6-8 weeks delivered in one-on-one or paired settings. Children with specific reading or language disorders showed better outcomes than those with broader academic difficulties.
Key points
- Seven studies met inclusion criteria out of 33 identified, indicating limited high-quality evidence in this intervention area
- Near-transfer outcomes (skills used within treatment setting) showed equivocal to moderate effects; far-transfer outcomes (generalization) were equivocal to small
- Most effective interventions combined explicit instruction, visual supports, and student-generated materials like graphic organizers
- Optimal dosage appeared to be 180-300 minutes of intervention across 6-8 weeks
- Children with specific reading or language disorders showed greater intervention effects than those with general academic performance difficulties
Limitations
The review synthesized only seven studies meeting strict criteria, which limits the strength of conclusions. The evidence base spans 1985-2019 and is limited to group experimental designs, so individual case studies and more recent interventions may not be captured.
Abstract
Purpose This systematic review synthesized a set of peer-reviewed studies published between 1985 and 2019 and addressed the effectiveness of existing narrative and expository discourse interventions for late elementary- and middle school-aged students with language-related learning disabilities. Method A methodical search of the literature for interventions targeting expository or narrative discourse structure for students aged 9-14 years with group experimental designs identified 33 studies, seven of which met specific criteria to be included in this review. Results An 8-point critical appraisal scale was applied to analyze the quality of the study design, and effect sizes were calculated for six of the seven studies; equivocal to small effects of far-transfer outcomes (i.e., generalizability to other settings) and equivocal to moderate near-transfer outcomes (i.e., within the treatment setting) were identified. The most effective intervention studies provided explicit instruction of expository texts with visual supports and student-generated learning materials (e.g., notes or graphic organizers) with moderate dosage (i.e., 180-300 min across 6-8 weeks) in a one-on-one or paired group setting. Greater intervention effects were also seen in children with reading and/or language disorders, compared to children with overall academic performance difficulties. Conclusions A number of expository discourse interventions showed promise for student use of learned skills within the treatment setting (i.e., near-transfer outcomes) but had limited generalization of skills (i.e., far-transfer outcomes). Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12449258.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- Explicit instruction in expository and narrative discourse structure with visual supports and student-generated learning materials
- Population
- Late elementary and middle school-aged students (9-14 years) with language-related learning disabilities
Key finding
Near-transfer outcomes showed equivocal to moderate effects (skills used within treatment setting)