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Lorem Ipsum Dolor Spring 2016
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The Dissertation of the Year Award is presented to a DVIDB member
who makes a significant contribution to the field through extensive study and
research. Dr. Savaiano's dissertation, "Comparison of vocabulary instruction
strategies for students who read braille" addressed whether the presence of a
target word in braille during instruction facilitated vocabulary learning more
efficiently than an auditory only instructional condition.
The study utilized an "adapted alternating treatments single-case
experimental design" with three students with visual impairments whose
primarily reading medium was braille. Data was collected on definition recall
and spelling was collected in each session with definition recall used to
measure mastery. The results of this study are not consistent with previous
findings with students who read print. Visual analyses of the data indicated
that participants reached mastery in both conditions, but all three reached
mastery on definition recall in fewer sessions in the auditory only condition.
Spellings of words were learned in the flashcard condition only, and possible
implications of this are discussed. The difference in the unit of recognition and
working memory load between reading braille and reading print is discussed
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