Facilitating Text Comprehension in Adults With Intellectual and/or Developmental Disability

Text comprehension can be facilitated in many ways, including enabling the listener to see pictures illustrating the story, to read along silently, or to read along aloud. The purpose of this study was to determine whether any of these three supports facilitated text comprehension in adults with intellectual and/or developmental disability (IDD). Researchers read four stories aloud to 26 adults with IDD under four conditions: listening only and listening while receiving each of the abovementioned three supports. Following each story, the participants responded orally to “wh-” comprehension questions. Participants’ reading and visuospatial skills were quantified. Results indicated that only participants with strong reading skills benefited from reading along silently or aloud and that illustration support did not appear to be an effective strategy. We provide implications and discuss the importance of adapting instruction to students’ strengths and preferences.