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Effects of assistive technology for students with reading and writing disabilities

SVENSSON, Idor
NORDSTRÖM, Thomas
LINDEBLAD, Emma
GUSTAFSON, Stefan
BJÖRN, Marianne
SAND, Christina
ALMGREN/BÄCK, Gunilla
NILSSON, Staffan
2019

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Background: 

Assistive technology has been used to mitigate reading disabilities for almost three decades, and tablets with text-to-speech and speech-to-text apps have been introduced in recent years to scaffold reading and writing. Few scientifically rigorous studies, however, have investigated the benefits of this technology.

 

Purpose: 

The aim was to explore the effects of assistive technology for students with severe reading disabilities.

 

Method: 

This study included 149 participants. The intervention group received 24 sessions of assistive technology training, and the control group received treatment as usual.

 

Results: 

Both the intervention and control groups improved as much in 1 year as the normed population did. However, gains did not differ between the groups directly after the intervention or at 1 year of follow-up.

 

Conclusions: 

The use of assistive technology seems to have transfer effects on reading ability and to be supportive, especially for students with the most severe difficulties. In addition, it increases motivation for overall schoolwork. Our experience also highlights the obstacles involved in measuring the ability to assimilate and communicate text.

Cross-sectional Survey to Assess Prevalence of Disability and Access to Services in Albay Province, The Philippines

HODGE, Marcus
BOLINAS, Amable
JAUCIAN, Erlynn
BONEO, Rebecca
SCHAPIRA, Allan
VILLANUEVA, Mary Mediatrix V
2017

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Aim:  A cluster randomized cross-sectional survey to assess the prevalence of disability and access to support services was conducted in Albay Province, the Philippines in April 2016.

 

Method:  The population-based survey methodologies developed by the Washington Group of the United Nations Statistical Commission and UNICEF were utilized.  A sample of 70 barangays (the 3rd level administrative division in the Philippines) was selected as clusters, with probability proportional to size, and 30 households were selected randomly in each barangay to be surveyed.

 

Results:  The estimated prevalence of disability using the standard criteria of the Washington Group and UNICEF among children (2-17 years old) was 2.0% and for adults (≥18 years old) it was 6.5%.  The estimated prevalence of disability was higher in rural than in urban areas.  Deficiencies in the performance of existing services were identified; access by children with disabilities to support services was lowest in rural highland and rural plain barangays.

 

Conclusions: There was a large unmet demand for support services addressing the needs of persons with disabilities in Albay Province, especially in rural highland areas.  Persons with disabilities were disadvantaged in access to education and employment; many had not been educated in their basic rights.

 

Implications:  To identify, educate and fully support persons with disabilities, community-based rehabilitation (CBR), health and other rehabilitation services must communicate effectively with each other, their current work should be mapped and analysed, their comparative strengths identified, and their future work coordinated.  It is a priority to educate persons with disabilities and their families about their rights, and facilitate their access to support services; this requires increased investment in communication targeting persons with disabilities and the communities, especially rural.  Providers caring for persons with disabilities need to work in partnership to identify unreached persons with disabilities.  Prevalence surveys, with stronger focus on the profiles and performance of CBR and related services, would add to the evidence-base to improve the quality and coverage of services for persons with disabilities.

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