Students with severe learning disabilities can learn higher order comprehension skills

An instructional program designed to help middle-school students with severe learning disabilities learn about story themes, and focused on enhancing ability to generalize to themes not included in the instruction, was evaluated. Ten small-group special education classrooms were randomly assigned to receive either the Theme Identification Program or a series of lessons with a traditional instruction framework. The program classrooms scored higher on concept of theme, identification of instructed themes, application of instructed themes to real-life situations, and identification of themes that were not included in the instruction. These findings indicate that students with severe learning disabilities can profit from instruction geared toward abstract higher order comprehension when it is designed according to their particular instructional requirements.