Assistive Technology: What it is & Why it is Not Cheating— By Dr. Kirsten Kohlmeyer
You have a student with dyslexia that comprehends at a much higher level than their independent decoding level. A visit to the school library ends with classmates picking out “chapter” books for independent reading, and you observe your student mill around uncomfortably, not interested in choosing the below grade-level basic reader they can decode in front of peers. This same student performs poorly on a science test, not for a lack of content knowledge, but because they spend a lot of cognitive time and energy trying to decode the questions. What can we do to help?
Assistive Technology (AT) is defined as “any item, piece of equipment, software program, or product system that is used to increase, maintain, or improve the functional capabilities of persons with disabilities' ' (IDEA). A plethora of AT options exist for students with dyslexia; where does one start? The choices can be overwhelming, yet highly impactful. AT consideration must be thoughtful, collaborative, and ongoing, as students, environments and task demands change over time. Text-to-speech (TTS) technology is one AT accommodation which allows students with dyslexia to gain access to curricular content higher than independent decoding levels, open opportunities to engage in and contribute to higher class level discussions, and show what they know. Let’s take a closer look.
Using TTS is not cheating! Reading remediation and accommodations can and should co-exist. TTS is about access, equity, and providing appropriate educational material to dyslexic learners. Students who use TTS have greater independent access to grade level materials, and are better able to explore areas of interest, and their world in general. Students with dyslexia who use TTS exhibit remediation potential for vocabulary, comprehension, reading accuracy and fluency, and perhaps most importantly, have more positive feelings about reading and school (Schiavo & Buson, 2014; Stodden et al., 2012). A meta-analysis conducted by Wood et al (2018) showed TTS is a valuable tool to improve reading comprehension scores for students with reading difficulties. Specifically, children showed significant comprehension gains when compared to silent reading of the passage on their own without TTS. TTS options can be obtained by using built-in computer accessibility features, extensions, Microsoft, Google Docs, iOS apps, handheld devices (i.e., C-Pen) and outside vendors such as Learning Ally, Bookshare, and Project Gutenberg. How do you choose which tool to use?
Students need multiple tools in their toolkit, and use of reading supports depends on many factors: Purpose: is the student reading for pleasure, annotating, reviewing, or studying for a test? Content: reading Shakespeare, a textbook, an email, or a menu? Level of engagement: is the student highly interested and motivated or are they counting the minutes until lunch? Environment: Small group? Large classroom? Standardized testing environment? Kitchen table? Task Demands: Is the student reading to gather information for a paper or surfing the web? Cognitive load: how difficult is the task related to the student's cognitive abilities? Skill sets: What are the student's skill sets with the task demands as well as the tools? Bottom line: what is the student's and/or educators desire to use the tools?
Here is a breakdown comparing the features of two major audiobook platforms, Bookshare and Learning Ally.
Bookshare is read out loud by a digital voice. This platform does not have a fee associated with it, allows for highlighting directly on the text for all texts, has easy-to-use navigation features, includes access to over 1 million texts, and takes requests for additional texts.
Learning Ally is read out loud by a human voice. This platform does have a fee associated with it, allows for highlighting directly on the text-only for some texts, has more challenging navigation features, includes access to over 76,000 texts, and takes requests for additional texts at times but is not guaranteed.
TTS training should be modeled, scaffolded, and explicitly taught for various types of reading. Tool choice and features such as reading voice, reading rate, and ability to interact with text (i.e., highlighting, extracting notes, annotating) are a function of personal preference, user experience, as well as the fit between the tool and task demands. AT accommodations such as TTS should be documented across the student’s IEP or 504 so that specific tools, usage, implementation strategies, integration, and necessary student and staff support are articulated. Documentation of a history of TTS use is also required to support applications for TTS accommodations on high-stakes testing (i.e., PSAT, SAT, ACT). Testing agencies may offer several reading accommodations such as a human reader, MP3 recording, and AT compatible test formats. Students' level of independence, ability to navigate and re-read text, and familiarity with use should be considered when applying for TTS accommodations.
Lastly, it is important to look at outcome measures. Educational teams can evaluate a student’s comprehension, homework completion, test scores, level of independence, proficiency and the amount students are reading (both for school and pleasure). The Universal Protocol for Accommodations in Reading (uPAR), developed to build the capacity of schools and districts to collect actionable data to support decision-making regarding reading accommodations and the tools needed to implement them is another tool that looks at potential benefits of types of AT reading tools (https://learningtools.donjohnston.com/product/upar/).
For more in-depth information on incidence/prevalence, legal obligations, TTS tools, classroom application strategies, use of TTS for testing and more, I recommend this resource for “all things” TTS: WCASS Guide: How to Provide Students with IEPs Access to their Grade Level Curriculum through Text to Speech (https://www.wcass.org/wcass-guide).
By: Dr. Kirsten Kohlmeyer
References
IDEA, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 20 U.S.C. § 1400 (2004)
Schiavo, G., & Buson, V. (2014). Interactive e-Books to support reading skills in dyslexia. In at IBOOC2014-2nd Workshop on Interactive eBook for Children at IDC.
Stodden, R. A., Roberts, K. D., Takahashi, K., Park, H. J., & Stodden, N. J. (2012). Use of text-to-speech software to improve reading skills of high school struggling readers. Procedia Computer Science, 14, 359-362.
Wood, S. G., Moxley, J. H., Tighe, E. L., & Wagner, R. K. (2018). Does use of text-to-speech and related read-aloud tools improve reading comprehension for students with reading disabilities? A meta-analysis. Journal of learning disabilities, 51(1), 73-84 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5494021/