ROBO-Writer and Microsoft Word: Comparative effects on improvement of writing skills of primary grade LD students

The major focus of this study is to better facilitate the learning of writing skills of the students exhibiting learning disabilities with computer technology. Thirty-three students exhibiting learning disabilities with written language deficits (grades 2-6 from special education resource rooms of two public elementary schools in a Midwestern city) participated in the study. They were recommended by their special education teachers and randomly assigned to three groups, two treatment groups, Microsoft Word (MS) and ROBO-Writer (RW) and a control group (CT). Subjects\u27 writing Proficiency and IQ scores were examined after they had been assigned. Matching among groups were confirmed. Pretest (first writing samples)-posttest (second writing samples) were used to compare the progress among groups. Two more writing samples were collected and used to compare to the first writing samples. The treatment group MS used Microsoft Word (a popular word processing program) and treatment group RW used ROBO-Writer (a writing tool specially designed for students with learning disabilities), the control group used paper-and-pencil as the writing tool. The results showed that ROBO-Writer is favored over Microsoft Word as well as paper-and-pencil. ROBO-Writer has special features (a voice synthesizing device, on screen dictionary of 1000 basic vocabulary words, teachers\u27 word lists, students\u27 word lists, digitized images of the students, and immediate teacher\u27s feedback) that correspond directly to the enhancement of the writing skills that students must use while writing. These features meet the special needs of LD students in primary grades. Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA) and Repeated-measures ANOVA were employed in this study. The results revealed that the subjects using ROBO-Writer present significantly more progress than the subjects using Microsoft Word or paper-and-pencil in terms of mechanical errors and holistic quality. The RW group produced texts of fewer mechanical errors and higher holistic quality. There was no significant group mean difference between the MS and CT groups