The Effect of Syntactic Structure and Semantics of the Comprehension of Content Area Prose by Mainstreamed Learning Disabled Adolescents

The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of syntactic structure and/or semantics on the comprehensibility of content area prose. The population consisted of learning disabled junior high school students who were mainstreamed into a minimum of four out of six regular classes. Drawn from subjects obtaining parental permission, 92 students were selected utilizing a table of random numbers to constitute the sample. The subjects were randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups or a control group and were administered a history textbook passage that contained syntactic and/or semantic changes or one that contained no changes. The results indicated a significant relationship between (1) comprehension and syntactic changes alone, and (2) comprehension and syntactic and semantic changes together, Conversely, the relationship between semantic changes alone and comprehension was found to be non-significant.