Morphing images: a potential tool for teaching word recognition to children with severe learning difficulties

Abstract

Children with severe learning difficulties who fail to begin word recognition can learn to recognise pictures and symbols relatively easily. However, finding an effective means of using pictures to teach word recognition has proved problematic. This research explores the use of morphing software to support the transition from picture to word recognition. Morphing software was used to teach word recognition to a group of eight children who were previously unable to recognise words. At the end of 16 teaching sessions, in a related design, the morphing technique was more effective than a word-alone approach ( p < 0.05, one-tailed). These results support the use of techniques such as symbol accentuation (Miller & Miller, 1971) and challenge the concept that the use of pictorial information is inherently detrimental to learning in this context, in comparison to the repeated presentation of words alone. The recent advent of accessible morphing software removes previous barriers to this type of approach. The investigation highlights several useful avenues for future research, in particular, the use of mnemonic elements within morphing teaching methods.

Teaching word recognition to children with severe learning difficulties: an exploratory comparison of teaching methods

“…In terms of cuing the correct word, the photographs worked well but, when used in the MM morphing, they were not efficient in leaving the child able to name the word without pictorial cues. This is in line with previous research in which pictorial cues are found to be readily recognised (Solman and Singh 1992), can be manipulated to become as effective as words alone (Sheehy 2005;Wu and Solman, 1995) but are not as effective in developing uncued recognition as HT (Sheehy 2002b). It has been argued that this performance reflects pictorial cues inefficiency in developing local feature recognition (Sheehy and Howe 2001).…”

“…It is debatable whether the outcomes for the two 'paper' conditions (WA and HT) would have been different if presented via a computer screen. Previous research has controlled this in a direct comparison of on-screen WA and MM and obtained findings in line with those obtained here (Sheehy 2005). It is also important to consider the overall purpose of the research, which is to identify an effective teaching approach which can be used in the classroom.…”

“…If the child was unable to name the word he or she was again told its name and prompted to repeat it. (Sheehy 2005).…”

“…As in previous research (Sheehy 2002(Sheehy , 2005) the criterion for selection was the absence of a sight vocabulary following extensive focussed teaching. The children were unable to recognise any words from the British Ability Scales Reading Test (Elliot 1983).…”

“…In this a picture is gradually transformed into a word. Sheehy (2005) utilised morphing software, with a feedback cuing approach, transforming a word into its corresponding picture and then back again. This process is illustrated in Figure The apparent success of these two methods raises a question.…”