Video-blogs and linguistic simplification for students with intellectual disability

The Internet provides individuals with intellectual disability with access to information and participation in a broader society, but it also presents risks when content is difficult to comprehend. This study aimed to test whether students with intellectual disability enhanced their comprehension of online blogs as a function of the format (text vs. video) and linguistic simplification.

Young students with intellectual disability read or watched text and video-blog posts about environment, health, society, and technology in their original version or a linguistically simplified/easy-to-read version. Then, they completed tests that assessed their reading processing (e.g., calibration) and comprehension of blog content.

Participants predicted that they would correctly answer 80% of the comprehension questions, but their average comprehension of the blog posts was 55%, regardless of the condition. Previous levels of students' reading comprehension skills predicted their blog comprehension scores and interacted with format and simplification. Those participants with higher reading comprehension skills learned more from non-simplified than from simplified blog posts while those with lower levels of reading comprehension skills did not benefit from linguistic simplification nor video-blog format although the difference with regard to higher comprehenders was lower in the video and simplified conditions.

Improving reading comprehension abilities of students with intellectual disability is essential to prevent the digital divide while linguistic simplification is not a useful accommodation and even counterproductive for higher reading comprehenders.