iPad and repeated reading to improve reading comprehension for young adults with intellectual disability.
iPad text-to-speech gives equal reading comprehension in one-third the time for most students with ID.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Three college students with intellectual disability joined a reading experiment.
Each student tried two tools: iPad text-to-speech and old-school repeated reading.
The team tracked how many questions each student answered right and how long it took.
What they found
Two students scored the same with both tools.
The iPad let them finish three times faster.
One student did not improve with either tool.
How this fits with other research
Au-Yeung et al. (2015) also saw young adults with ID master iPad tasks faster than regular apps.
Tanis et al. (2012) warns most adults with ID still use less tech than the public.
That survey and Alqahtani (2020) seem opposite, but the gap is about access, not ability.
When you give the right tool, students show the gains.
Why it matters
You can swap long repeated-reading drills for quick iPad listening and keep the same learning.
Save session time for writing, discussion, or leisure skills.
Start with a brief preference check—one student here needed a different path.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: The iPad is a promising tool for supporting the academic skills of students with disabilities, including young adults with intellectual disability (ID). These students may struggle to gain or retain employment because they lack functional reading skills. Therefore, improving functional reading will help these students comprehend text and master reading. METHOD: Using a single-subject design, this study is a comparison of repeated reading and iPad text-to-speech techniques for three young adults with ID. RESULTS: The results show that two participants improved their reading comprehension in both conditions, with no significant difference between conditions. However, iPad instruction helped these students access text in almost one third of the time that the repeated reading required. CONCLUSION: This demonstrates that iPads may be effective tools for supporting the academic skills of students with ID.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2020 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2020.103703