Investigating the impact of impairment and barriers experienced by students with language and/or attentional difficulties

Figures & data

Table 1. Description of TILLS subtests and Brown EF/A clusters most relevant to comprehensibility of classroom instruction.

Assessment tool	Subtest	Skills assessed
TILLS subtests	Vocabulary Awareness	Lexical knowledge, awareness of semantic relationships and cognitive-linguistic flexibility
	Story Retelling	Comprehension and retell of a story
	Delayed Story Retelling	Comprehension and retell of a story after a time delay
	Following Directions	Comprehension, retention, and action to carry out instructions
	Listening Comprehension	Metalinguistic awareness, syntactic flexibility, and inferencing skills
	Digit Span Forwards	Short-term verbal working memory
	Digit Span Backwards	Complex working memory, requiring retention and manipulation of number strings
Brown EF/A clusters	Memory	Utilising working memory and accessing recall
	Effort	Regulation of alertness, sustained effort, and regulating processing speed
	Focus	Focus and sustaining/shifting attention
	Activation	Organisation, and prioritisation and initiation of tasks
	Action	Appropriate behaviour and self-regulating actions

Figure 1. Histogram indicating group distribution on the TILLS.

Note. Dashed line indicates normative mean (100) and 1 SD below (85). Scores to the left of this line indicate greater language difficulties.

Figure 2. Histogram indicating group distribution on the Brown EFA.

Note. Dashed line indicates normative mean (50) and one SD above (60), indicating greater difficulties.

Figure 3. Scatterplot of 59 student TILLS Total scores against Brown EF/A Total T-score.

Figure 4. Frequency of TILLS subtest standard scores.

Note. Dotted line indicates normative mean (10) and 1 SD below the mean (7). VA = Vocabulary Awareness; DSF = Digit Span Forwards; DSB = Digit Span Backwards; FD = Following Directions; SR = Story Retelling; DSR = Delayed Story Retelling; LC = Listening Comprehension.

Table 2. Descriptive statistics and one sample t-tests on TILLS subtests.

				95% CI		Cohen’s d
	M (SD)	z	p	Lower	Upper
Vocabulary Awareness	3.60 (3.75)	−7.21	<.001	−14.91	−8.53	1.71
Digit Span Forwards	6.49 (2.90)	−5.14	<.001	−11.45	−5.13	1.21
Digit Span Backwards	7.85 (2.22)	−5.51	<.001	−9.01	−4.28	0.97
Following Directions	7.04 (3.72)	−4.90	<.001	−7.62	−3.27	0.79
Story Retell	7.34 (2.59)	−5.18	<.001	−9.71	−4.37	1.03
Delayed Story Retell	7.72 (2.72)	−5.20	<.001	−7.91	−3.58	0.84
Listening Comprehension	7.66 (4.01)	−3.76	<.001	−6.09	−1.91	0.58

Note. t-tests bootstrapped with 2000 samples. Sample means were compared to the normative mean of 10.

Figure 5. Frequency of Brown EF/A cluster T-Scores.

Note. Dotted lines indicate normative T-score mean (50) and 1 SD above the mean (60). Vertical axis is reversed such that from top to bottom, data points represent greater attentional difficulties.

Table 3. Descriptive statistics and one sample t-tests on Brown EF/A clusters.

				95% CI		Cohen’s d
	M (SD)	z	p	Lower	Upper
Memory	60.34 (10.68)	6.62	<.001	4.67	8.60	0.97
Effort	59.06 (10.27)	4.98	<.001	3.67	8.43	0.88
Focus	57.49 (9.91)	4.68	<.001	3.01	7.35	0.76
Activation	57.45 (10.52)	4.14	<.001	2.56	7.15	0.71
Action	55.51 (10.3)	3.64	<.001	1.69	5.64	0.53

Note. t-tests bootstrapped with 2000 samples. Sample means were compared to the normative mean of 50.

Table 4. Responses from students with average language and typical attention.

Category	Student statement
Impact of impairment	“I don’t really understand things properly, but then that kind of just made me feel like a bit, like, stupid, and, like, dumb”. (Lacey)
Linking impacts to barriers	“I feel like I remember it and I learn better if we’re doing something, an activity around it”. (Tane)
	“I’m more of like a visual learner rather than just books and stuff. I hate just writing in books”. (Sanjit)
	“ … well, my memory’s usually fairly good. So, if there’s like some basic rules, I could learn to help get my structure better”. (Laurence)
	I got a new teacher. And he gave the class a worksheet with, like, four questions. And, ‘cause it’s, like, reading and comprehension. And I’ve, like, sucked at comprehension since, like, year four, year three, when I had to do, like, NAPLAN. (Lacey)
Practices students wish teachers would use	“I wish she had more humour”. (Levi)