Scientific Learning Corporation. (2004). MAPS for Learning: Product Reports, 3(1), 1–13.
Reviewed: March 2013
This review may not reflect the full body of research evidence for this intervention.
Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
Please see the WWC summary of evidence for Fast ForWord®.
|
Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Phonological Awareness Test (PAT): Isolation subtest |
Fast ForWord® vs. business as usual |
Posttest |
Grades K-3;
|
93.60 |
91.30 |
No |
-- | |
|
Phonological Awareness Test (PAT): Deletion subtest |
Fast ForWord® vs. business as usual |
Posttest |
Grades K-3;
|
89.80 |
89.90 |
No |
-- | |
|
Woodcock-Johnson Revised (WJ-R): Letter-Word Identification subtest |
Fast ForWord® vs. business as usual |
Posttest |
Grades K-3;
|
88.30 |
89.50 |
No |
-- |
|
Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Test of Auditory Comprehension of Language- Revised (TACL-R) |
Fast ForWord® vs. business as usual |
Posttest |
Grades K-3;
|
47.00 |
42.50 |
Yes |
|
|
Characteristics of study sample as reported by study author.
The study was conducted in nine school districts in the United States.
In this randomized study, teachers from nine school districts identified 585 students who performed in the bottom quartile of their language arts classes. These students were primarily from grades K–3; 145 students were excluded from the study prior to group assignment if they received special education services or did not complete the pre-evaluations. The remaining 440 students were randomly assigned, within each grade and gender strata, to either the Fast ForWord® group or the comparison group on a fixed 1.74:1 ratio. The analysis sample included 266 students in the Fast ForWord® group and 160 students in the comparison group. However, the overall student attrition rate ranged from 8% to 15%, depending on the outcome. The overall and differential attrition rates of students met WWC standards for low attrition.
Students in the intervention group played seven selected games from the Fast ForWord® Language program for one hour and 40 minutes a day, 5 days a week, for an average of about 30 school days. Most students stopped playing when the student reached a 90% performance level on five of the seven games.
The comparison group received the standard instruction provided in the regular reading and language arts curriculum.
For both the pretest and posttest, students took the Isolation and Deletion subtests of the Phonological Awareness Test (PAT), the Letter-Word Identification subtest of the Woodcock-Johnson (WJ) Psycho-Educational Battery, and the Test of Auditory Comprehension of Language. For a more detailed description of these outcome measures, see Appendix B.
No details about training were provided.
In the case of multiple manuscripts that report on one study, the WWC selects one manuscript as the primary citation and lists other manuscripts that describe the study as additional sources.
Miller, S. L., Merzenich, M. M., Tallal, P., DeVivo, K., Linn, N., Pycha, A., et al. (1999). Fast ForWord training in children with low reading performance. Proceedings of the 1999 Dutch National Speech-Language Association Meeting, 1–18.
Reviewed: August 2010
This review may not reflect the full body of research evidence for this intervention.
Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
Please see the WWC summary of evidence for Fast ForWord®.
Reviewed: September 2006
This review may not reflect the full body of research evidence for this intervention.
Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
Please see the WWC summary of evidence for Fast ForWord®.
|
Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Test of Auditory Comprehension of Language- Revised (TACL-R) |
Fast ForWord® vs. Business as Usual |
Posttest |
Grades K-5;
|
45.21 |
37.93 |
Yes |
|
|
Characteristics of study sample as reported by study author.
The study was conducted in nine school districts in the United States. Elementary school teachers identified students as at-risk based on student difficulties with reading and language arts.
Four-hundred fifty-two academically at-risk students in kindergarten through fifth grade were randomly assigned, within grade and gender, to the treatment group (n=288) or the control group (n=164) at a 1.74:1 ratio. The original study stated that 85 of the students were categorized as English language learners (53 in the treatment group and 32 in the control group).1 Follow-up correspondence with the developer of the intervention revealed that 98 students were identified as English language learners. Nine English language learning students were also identified as receiving services for special education and were not included in the analysis. Of the remaining 89 students, five from the comparison group and three from the intervention group had incomplete data. There were complete data for a total of 81 English language learning students (52 in the treatment group and 29 in the comparison group).
Participants used Fast ForWord Language, an adaptive computer-based training program based on acoustically modified speech and language training. Students were presented with seven exercises as computer games. Exercises began with acoustic reception and moved to more complex skills in syntactic and semantic aspects of language. The difficulty of each task was continuously adapted so that participants would get about 80% of the items correct. Participants used the program about 100 minutes a day, five days a week over an average of 39 days. Each participant worked on multiple 20-minute Fast ForWord Language training exercises during each session.
The control group used their regular curriculum. No information about the regular curriculum was provided.
The study measure in the English language development domain was the Test of Auditory Comprehension of Language Revised Edition (TACL-R). (See Appendix A2.2 for a more detailed description of this outcome measure.) The study measure in the phonological awareness domain was the Phonological Awareness Test (PAT). The WWC review of English language learning interventions does not investigate phonological awareness, so results for this domain are not included in this report.
No information about teacher training was provided. However, the teachers were speech-language or educational professionals.
An indicator of the effect of the intervention, the improvement index can be interpreted as the expected change in percentile rank for an average comparison group student if that student had received the intervention.
For more, please see the WWC Glossary entry for improvement index.
An outcome is the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are attained as a result of an activity. An outcome measures is an instrument, device, or method that provides data on the outcome.
A finding that is included in the effectiveness rating. Excluded findings may include subgroups and subscales.
The sample on which the analysis was conducted.
The group to which the intervention group is compared, which may include a different intervention, business as usual, or no services.
The timing of the post-intervention outcome measure.
The number of students included in the analysis.
The mean score of students in the intervention group.
The mean score of students in the comparison group.
The WWC considers a finding to be statistically significant if the likelihood that the finding is due to chance alone, rather than a real difference, is less than five percent.
The WWC reviews studies for WWC products, Department of Education grant competitions, and IES performance measures.
The name and version of the document used to guide the review of the study.
The version of the WWC design standards used to guide the review of the study.
The result of the WWC assessment of the study. The rating is based on the strength of evidence of the effectiveness of the intervention. Studies are given a rating of Meets WWC Design Standards without Reservations, Meets WWC Design Standards with Reservations, or >Does Not Meet WWC Design Standards.
A related publication that was reviewed alongside the main study of interest.
Study findings for this report.
Based on the direction, magnitude, and statistical significance of the findings within a domain, the WWC characterizes the findings from a study as one of the following: statistically significant positive effects, substantively important positive effects, indeterminate effects, substantively important negative effects, and statistically significant negative effects. For more, please see the WWC Handbook.
The WWC may review studies for multiple purposes, including different reports and re-reviews using updated standards. Each WWC review of this study is listed in the dropdown. Details on any review may be accessed by making a selection from the drop down list.
Tier 1 Strong indicates strong evidence of effectiveness,
Tier 2 Moderate indicates moderate evidence of effectiveness, and
Tier 3 Promising indicates promising evidence of effectiveness,
as defined in the
non-regulatory guidance for ESSA
and the regulations for ED discretionary grants (EDGAR Part 77).
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