Department of Counseling, Psychology and Special Education, Duquesne University , Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania , USA.
School of Human Services, University of Cincinnati , Cincinnati , Ohio , USA.
Assist Technol. 2019;31(4):220-230. doi: 10.1080/10400435.2018.1431974. Epub 2018 Mar 8.
This study compared the effectiveness of two assistive technologies to accommodate the word reading skills of four middle school students with reading learning disabilities. Kurzweil 3000 is a continuous text-to-speech (TTS) computer software program that allows students to follow along on a computer monitor while passages are read aloud. A reading pen is a discontinuous TTS assistive technology (AT) device that allows students to scan and hear selected words read aloud. An adapted alternating treatments design was implemented to compare the effects of listening-while-reading using continuous TTS AT, discontinuous TTS AT, and silently reading without accommodation on reading comprehension accuracy and rate. Results indicate that in three of the four participants, continuous TTS technology led to the greatest improvements in both comprehension accuracy and rate when compared to silent reading with effect sizes reaching 0.70 and 0.99, respectively. The fourth participant demonstrated the highest comprehension accuracy and rate in the discontinuous TTS condition. The discontinuous TTS condition led to the lowest comprehension rates across all four students. Additionally, participants generally found the continuous TTS AT to be the more acceptable of the two accommodations. Discussion focuses on possible theoretical explanations for the results and implications for future research.
本研究比较了两种辅助技术在适应四位中学阅读学习障碍学生阅读技能方面的效果。Kurzweil 3000 是一种连续文本到语音（TTS）计算机软件程序，允许学生在计算机显示器上跟随阅读，同时朗读文章。阅读笔是一种不连续的 TTS 辅助技术（AT）设备，允许学生扫描并听到所选单词的朗读。采用适应交替治疗设计来比较使用连续 TTS AT、不连续 TTS AT 和无适应的默读对阅读理解准确性和速度的影响。结果表明，在四个参与者中的三个中，与默读相比，连续 TTS 技术在阅读理解准确性和速度方面均有最大的提高，其效果大小分别达到 0.70 和 0.99。第四个参与者在不连续 TTS 条件下表现出最高的阅读理解准确性和速度。不连续 TTS 条件导致所有四个学生的阅读理解速度最低。此外，参与者普遍认为连续 TTS AT 是两种适应方式中更可接受的一种。讨论重点是对结果的可能理论解释以及对未来研究的意义。
