HCC: Large: Collaborative Research: Delivery of Personalized Reading Strategies for People with Cognitive Impairments in Post-Secondary Settings

阅读理解缺陷是普遍存在的不成比例的大专学生。这些学生有认知障碍，影响了高水平的文本处理能力，导致阅读能力不一，在辨别相关和不相关信息、推断、将背景知识与新知识联系起来、以及在以后的学习中保留和应用所学知识等技能上存在困难。通常，这种缺陷是通过教授学习技巧策略来管理的。虽然这些实践具有很强的表面有效性，但缺乏基于证据的实践，而且几乎没有关于候选人资格或哪种类型的缺陷最适合哪种类型的策略和支持的信息。在技术方面，电子阅读平板电脑的普及提供了一个平台来提供支持，以提高大学生的阅读理解和记忆能力。该项目旨在通过开发技术，以一种高度可接受的形式为具有高度阅读障碍的大学生提供多样化的阅读策略，通过做必要的科学来定义一个可以评估每个学生的过程，并通过规定一套最终将在硬件软件包中交付的策略，从而弥合差距。通过使用迭代设计过程和参与式行动研究模型，本研究将做出以下贡献：将阅读概况/缺陷与策略支持相匹配的动态评估过程；阅读障碍与阅读策略的关系研究电子阅读平板电脑阅读策略的翻译演示了使用我们的软件工程模型可以实现个性化和适应性；还有一个使用开源软件和硬件的传播包，可以为设计商业化阅读平板电脑的公司提供一个研究工具。为了实现这些目标，PI将与三家机构合作，这三家机构在高等教育机构中有大量困难的读者：两家支持和培训退伍军人重返教育机构的VA设施，以及一所大型城市州立大学的学生残疾服务项目。这些小组都经历过普遍存在的阻碍教育成功的高水平阅读挑战，并为评估PI的模型和塑造本研究产生的工具提供了自然环境。将采用试点研究、实验室实验和纵向研究来开发和评价动态阅读评估和支持工具的技术。更广泛的影响：越来越多的人无法满足大学和社区大学课程的阅读要求，大量从伊拉克和阿富汗返回的退伍军人寻求教育和培训福利。据估计，这些退伍军人中有15-20%遭受了足以影响学术能力的轻度脑损伤。另一大群受到阅读理解困难挑战的大学生是那些患有成人注意力缺陷和多动障碍（ADHD）和注意力缺陷障碍（ADD）等发育障碍的学生。据估计，在大学入学的学生中，有临床显著ADHD或ADD症状的人数在2%至8%之间；在接受残疾支持服务的学生中，大约有25%的人接受的是ADHD支持服务。PI期望从这项工作中得到两个重要的结果：文献中缺失的将阅读障碍与阅读策略联系起来的科学；以及建立在科学基础上的演示工具，它支持评估过程和交付机制。考虑到后一种结果，PI打算在项目第5年的大部分时间里，使他的工具对那些拥有向目标人群交付产品的基础设施的公司具有很高的吸引力。

Abstract Reading comprehension deficits are pervasive for a disproportionate number of post-secondary students. These students have cognitive impairments that impact high level text processing skills and result in diverse reading profiles with difficulties in skills such as discerning between relevant and irrelevant information, drawing inferences, connecting background knowledge to new learning, and retaining and applying what was learned at a later date. Typically such deficits are managed by teaching the use of study-skills strategies. While there is strong face validity for these practices there is a lack of evidence-based practice, and virtually no information on candidacy or what types of deficits respond best to what types of strategies and supports. On the technology side, the popularity of electronic reading tablets offers a platform to deliver supports to improve reading comprehension and retention that could be adopted by college students. This project seeks to bridge the gap by developing the technology to support a diverse set of reading strategies in a highly adoptable form for college students with high-level reading impairments, by doing the science necessary to define a process that can assess each individual student, and by prescribing a set of strategies that eventually will be delivered in a hardware-software package. By using an iterative design process and a participatory action research model, this research will make the following contributions: a dynamic assessment process that matches reading profiles/impairments to strategy supports; a mapping of reading impairments to reading strategies; translation of reading strategies to delivery on electronic reading tablets; a demonstration that personalization and adaptation are possible using our software engineering models; and a dissemination package that uses open source software and hardware to deliver a research tool that could be used by companies designing commercialized reading tablets. To achieve these goals, the PI will partner with three institutions that have large populations of struggling readers in post-secondary educational settings: two VA facilities that support and train veterans returning to educational settings, and a student disability services program at a large urban state university. These groups have experience with the pervasive, high level reading challenges preventing educational success, and provide the natural contexts to evaluate the PI's models and shape the tools generated from this research. Pilot studies, laboratory experiments and longitudinal studies will be employed to develop and evaluate the technology for a dynamic reading assessment and support tool. Broader Impacts: A growing population not able to meet the reading demands of college and community college courses is the large number of veterans returning form Iraq and Afghanistan seeking education and training benefits. It is estimated that 15-20% of these veterans have suffered mild brain injury sufficient to affect academic ability. Another large group of post-secondary students that is challenged by difficulties with reading comprehension are those with developmental conditions including adult attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and attention deficit disorder (ADD). Estimates regarding the number of students enrolled in colleges who report clinically significant ADHD or ADD symptoms vary between 2% to 8%; approximately 25% of students receiving disability support services are receiving those for ADHD. The PI expects two important outcomes from this work: the science missing from the literature that links reading impairments with reading strategies; and a demonstration tool, built on the science, that supports an assessment process and a delivery mechanism. With this latter outcome in mind, the PI intends to devote a large part of Year 5 of the project to making his tool highly attractive to companies who have the infrastructure to deliver products to the target populations.