Research evaluating phonics reading programs for children with severe intellectual disabilities (ID) is limited. The current study investigated whether using an online reading program (Headsprout^® Early Reading; HER) as supplementary reading instruction for children with a severe ID leads to improvements in reading skills as compared to children not receiving this additional instruction. Fifty-five children from a special school were randomly allocated into the HER group or a waiting list control group. For six months, children in the intervention group received HER as supplementary instruction, whereas children in the control group received only ‘reading as usual’ teaching. Pre- and post-intervention tests on standardised reading measures were conducted. Analysis of data from outcome measures indicated that the HER group made improvements at post-intervention in comparison with the control group, with medium effect sizes on two domains from the main outcome measure. These results support the case for a larger research trial of HER for children with severe ID.

中文翻译：

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Headsprout® 重度智力障碍儿童早期阅读：一项单盲随机对照试验

评估针对严重智力障碍 (ID) 儿童的语音阅读计划的研究是有限的。当前的研究调查了是否使用在线阅读程序 (Headsprout ^®早读；HER）作为对重度智力障碍儿童的补充阅读指导，与没有接受这种额外指导的儿童相比，阅读技能有所提高。来自特殊学校的 55 名儿童被随机分配到 HER 组或等候名单对照组。六个月来，干预组的儿童接受 HER 作为补充指导，而对照组的儿童仅接受“照常阅读”的教学。对标准化阅读测量进行了干预前和干预后测试。对结果测量数据的分析表明，与对照组相比，HER 组在干预后取得了改善，主要结果测量的两个领域的效果中等。