THE EFFECTS OF STORY PROMPTS ON THE NARRATIVE PRODUCTION OF STUDENTS WITH AND WITHOUT LEARNING-DISABILITIES

The effects of four types of prompting conditions on the narrative pro ductions of seventh- and eighth-grade students with leaming disabiliti es (LD) and without learning disabilities (NLD) were investigated. Par ticipants were asked to write four stories for which a beginning, midd le, end, or no prompt was given in a randomly assigned order. Results indicated differences between LD and NLD groups in both quantity and q uality of story production across prompts. A significant group-by-prom pt interaction supported the experimental hypothesis. The difference b etween the quality of LD and NLD stories was significantly greater fol lowing the middle-prompt condition; that is, the LD group scored signi ficantly lower when offered the middle prompt than under the other pro mpting conditions. The results are interpreted as supporting the theor etical position that students with LD reveal relatively greater propen sity for linear-sequential processing. Hence, the quality of their wri ting performance on tasks requiring recursive processing is lower than that of NLD students.