Effects of the Paraphrasing Strategy on Expository Reading Comprehension of Young Adults with Intellectual Disability

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effectiveness of teaching a three-step paraphrasing strategy on expository reading comprehension of young adults with intellectual disability. Ten learners from a postsecondary education program for individuals with disability participated in the study. They were randomly assigned to the control and experimental group before the study. An instructor delivered a series of 12 lessons to students in the experimental group using the cognitive strategy instructional model. In the context of a pre- and posttest with control group design, students in the experimental group outperformed the control group on total number of main ideas and details recalled. Results of the study indicate that young adults with intellectual disability can benefit from a cognitive reading comprehension strategy using explicit instruction procedures.