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Many students with disabilities have written language production deficits. As a result, these students are failing to meet the demands of government-initiated standards, higher education, and employment. In this review, quantitative experimental intervention studies for improving persuasive, narrative, and expository compositions for adolescents, 6th-12th grade, with high incidence disabilities in the United States are evaluated. The review focuses on standard-based essay writing, specifically U.S. Common Core State Standards (CCSS, 2013). Twenty-six single subject and group studies were reviewed. Effect sizes for group designs and percentage of non-overlapping data (PND) for single-case designs were provided to enable standardized assessment of intervention strength. Quality indicators were used to evaluate strength of designs. Results indicate Self-Regulated Strategy Development and the Strategic Instruction Model as promising intervention approaches for facilitating essay-writing skills for adolescents with high-incidence disabilities. Further intervention research is needed, specifically in relation to CCSS, and to identify methods for supporting maintenance and generalization skills across content-area curricula.

A multiprobe multiple baseline design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of strategy instruction in persuasive quick writing with 5 seventh- and eighth-grade students who attended a county alternative placement school for students with severe emotional and behavioral disabilities. Students were taught to plan and write a 10-minute persuasive response using the Self-Regulated Strategy Development instructional model. Instruction was conducted over five 30-minutes sessions plus three 10-minute sessions. Positive effects were noted for all students on the primary measure, quality of written responses. The effect of the intervention was maintained overtime. All students reported that the instruction benefited performance. (Contains 4 tables, 3 figures, and 1 footnote.)

Students' academic achievement across content areas is often dependent on their ability to express knowledge through written expression. Many adolescent students lack the skills to write efficiently and effectively. These low-achieving writers can benefit from instruction in self-regulating the writing process. One approach, Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) instruction, has proven effective in improving the writing performance of struggling adolescent learners. In this article, SRSD instruction for teaching adolescents to respond to a quick write prompt will be described. (Contains 4 figures.)