Teacher interaction styles and task engagement of elementary students with cognitive disabilities

Interaction styles of special education teachers were investigated using semi-structured observation of 13 student-teacher pairs during one-on-one language arts instruction of elementary students with cognitive disabilities. Teacher use of directions and responses of differing communication modes and types were analyzed. Student task-engagement behaviors (i.e., engage, intrusive/disruptive, on-task, and off-task) provided a context for understanding differences in teacher styles. The results indicate that, similar to previous studies of mother-child interaction in developmental disabilities, special educator style is more directive than responsive; they used directions over twice that of responses. Gestural prompts and questions were the most frequently used directions. Teacher directions - individual as well as aggregate measures - were related to the rate dimension, but not the duration dimension, of student active task engagement, suggesting short-lived effects of teacher directions. Thus, while teachers may observe a desired change in student performance, the change may not be durable and, hence, may not be as desirable as they had believed. Implications and cautions of the current findings are discussed.