Relationship between pragmatic language skills and reading comprehension skills of the students with and without learning difficulties

The main purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between pragmatic language skills and reading comprehension skills of the students with and without learning difficulties. The study group constituted a total of 62 students, consisted of 31 5th and 6th grade students, 31 of whom are with learning disabilities and 31 of whom are with normal development. The research was conducted in relational scanning model, one of the quantitative research methods. The data were collected by using the Pragmatic Language Skills Inventory and Non-Formal Reading Inventory tool sets. As a result of the analysis, it was seen that the students with learning difficulties in pragmatic language skills and reading comprehension skills got lower scores than the students with normal development. When the relationship between students' pragmatic language skills and their reading comprehension skills were examined, it was seen that there was a moderate-level relationship between the Pragmatic Language Skills Index of the sudents with learning difficulties and their abilities to answer the read narrative text questions and again there was a moderate-level relationship between the In-Class Interaction skills which have been the subtitles of the Pragmatic Language Skills Inventory and the abilities to express the read narrative text and to answer their questions. It was seen that there was a moderate-level relationship between the PDB Index of the students with normal development and their abilities to express the read narrative text and to answer the informative text questions, and also there was a moderate-level relationship between the In-Class Interaction and Personal Interaction skills which have been the subtitles of the Pragmatic Language Skills Inventory and the ability to express the read narrative text and to answer their questions and to express the read informative text and to answer their questions.