Investigations Into the Relationship Between Science and Language Abilities of Students with Mild Disabilities

This paper presents three studies of learning in science using language-based measures. In study 1, students with disabilities read at approximately half the rate of students without disabilities on third-grade level story and science passages. Reading fluency in science lagged far behind story reading. Study 2 consisted of presenting students with disabilities with four increasingly difficult passages on matter followed by comprehension questions. There was no relationship between reading fluency and comprehension. Students did not differ in ability to answer factual and inferential questions. In study 3, a significant difference was found between students with and without disabilities in listening and reading formats of a vocabulary measure. For the former, listening scores were significantly higher than reading. Together, the studies indicate that students with disabilities will not learn effectively in science if instruction is primarily language based.