Including people in the automatic text adaptation process: empirical findings from students with intellectual disability.
Modern automatic text adaptation often fails to meet the specific needs of targeted readers. The TextAD project aimed to address this gap by creating tailored texts for students with intellectual disability (ID), focusing on their unique challenges. This exploratory study presents findings from thre...
| Published in: | Disability & Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology Vol. 21; no. 2; pp. 496 - 515 |
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
| Format: | research tables/charts Journal Article |
| Published: |
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Feb2026
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ccm&AN=191578088&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ccm uiTerm: 191578088 longDbName: CINAHL Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: dissinfo: jinfo: jid: 17483107 1X04 jtl: Disability & Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology issn: 17483107 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Feb2026 vid: 21 iid: 2 pid: 377 pub: Taylor & Francis Ltd place: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania artinfo: ui: 191578088 187050401 191578088 191578088 10.1080/17483107.2025.2536701 191578088 ppf: 496 ppct: 19 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P tig: atl: Including people in the automatic text adaptation process: empirical findings from students with intellectual disability. aug: au: Elwér, Åsa Rennes, Evelina Nilsson, Karin Cederborg, Lina Holmer, Daniel Jönsson, Arne affil: Department of Behavioral Sciences and Learning, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden sug: subj: Students with Disabilities Persons with Intellectual Disabilities Students, High School Automation Reading Grammar Human Male Female Adolescence Sweden Empirical Research Exploratory Research Cognition Readability Paired T-Tests Thematic Analysis Self Report Funding Source Adolescent: 13-18 years Male Female ab: Modern automatic text adaptation often fails to meet the specific needs of targeted readers. The TextAD project aimed to address this gap by creating tailored texts for students with intellectual disability (ID), focusing on their unique challenges. This exploratory study presents findings from three rounds of testing automatic adaptations at lexical, syntactic, and discourse levels in expository texts. Reading comprehension, self-reported ratings of comprehension, interest, and perceived difficulty, along with metacognitive insights were assessed with 27 students with ID, refining adaptations based on each iteration's results. While comprehension gains for the adapted versions were not significant overall, promising outcomes appeared with lexical and syntactic adaptations in the later rounds of testing, although group heterogeneity influenced results. Despite reporting high comprehension, students noted persistent difficulty understanding many expository concepts. Alongside evaluating the effects of text adaptations on comprehension and perceived understanding, this paper offers insights into assessment approaches for developing automatic adaptations tailored to this audience. IMPLICATIONS FOR REHABILITATION: Automatic lexical and syntactic text adaptations can help improve reading comprehension for students with intellectual disabilities (ID), but significant group heterogeneity affects outcomes. It was unclear if automatic discourse-level adaptations improved the student's unsupervised reading, such adaptations may require explicit instruction. Students with ID report considerable difficulty understanding concepts in expository texts, suggesting that key vocabulary should be discussed or introduced closely alongside the reading task. Definitions provided in or outside the text did not aid student understanding. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: research tables/charts Journal Article ougenre: Article language: English refInfo: holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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