Development of Listening Skills in Students in Special Education Settings

Abstract

Children in special education settings often lack appropriate listening skills. Two programs identified with developing listening skills, a music program and a storytelling program, were implemented by teachers with students in special education settings over a 30 week intervention period. A battery of tests measuring different aspects of listening such as receptive vocabulary, phonological processing, and listening comprehension, was administered to the students prior to the intervention period, at the end of the intervention period and again several weeks later. The results from the tests indicated that participation by the students in these programs had a positive effect on the development of their listening skills. The effects of the music and story‐telling programs were not apparent until the postpost‐pretest period suggesting that a longer time‐period is required for a statistically significant music effect or story effect on the listening skills of students in special education settings to show.