Teaching Decoding Through Constant Time Delay to Students with Severe Disabilities and Verbal Difficulties

Very little research has occurred about students with severe disabilities and verbal difficulties and their ability to learn phonics, decoding, and other early literacy skills(Ainsworth et al., 2016 and Johnston et al., 2009b). Ainsworth et al. (2016) used the Accessible Literacy Learning curriculum to teach phonics and decoding. Johnston et al. (2009b) used a three-step instructional strategy, step one - increased opportunities for adult-directed teaching and active teacher child interaction, step two- use of time delay to teach, step three-consequences, to teach phonics and decoding. While both studies utilized time delay in some fashion, they were not entirely based upon the evidence-based practice. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to determine whether constant time delay is effective in teaching phonics and decoding to students with severe disabilities and verbal difficulties and if students can generalize the skill to words that have not been explicitly taught. Results indicated a functional relation between the use of constant time delay and decoding of CVC words. Additionally, students were able to maintain and generalize learning. Students with severe disabilities and verbal difficulties can effectively learn decoding of CVC words through constant time delay and can maintain and generalize the skill. Results were similar to other studies which implemented constant time delay to promote emergent literacy skills (e.g., Browder et al., 2012; Dessemont et al., 2019; Spooner et al., 2015; Tucker Cohen et al., 2008). Practitioners can use constant time delay to teach decoding to students with severe disabilities and verbal difficulties and to promote early reading skills. Future research should replicate the study with students from different age groups as well as examining the effects of this strategy on the acquisition of CCVC and CVCC words