1. How does a text-to-speech (TTS) tool affect the comprehension of social studies texts by 8th grade students with learning disabilities?
2. What are the differential effects on text comprehension when students: (a) read text aloud, (b) listen to text read by a TTS tool as they view the text, and (c) listen to text read by a student of their age as they view the text?
3. How do student characteristics, particularly reading fluency and listening comprehension, affect text comprehension in each of these three conditions?

Update for 2009

Text-to-speech (TTS) applications have been a key element of efforts to make text more accessible and comprehensible to students with reading and learning disabilities. In our NCSeT study for 2008-2009 we compared the impact of a TTS program on students' text comprehension and reading preferences. Seven 8th grade students with learning disabilities participated in a multi-element, single-subject research design in which they listened to text read aloud by the literacy software program WYNN (as they viewed that text on the computer screen) or read text aloud. All text consisted of 500-word selections from a World History textbook, which were rewritten to be age-appropriate.

Initial analyses suggest that there were no differences in comprehension between the TTS and reading aloud conditions on either the comprehension questions or the story retells. Furthermore, use of TTS versus text read aloud did not differentially affect the types of questions that students could answer correctly (e.g., main idea versus vocabulary). Across the sessions, students expressed a preference for using the TTS program, but there appeared to be a gender difference in preferences. Boys stated a preference for TTS (over reading the text aloud) 94% of the time. And, they labeled the WYNN passage as more interesting than the text-based passage 94% of the time. Girls, however, expressed a preference for TTS 83% of the time, but rated the TTS passage as more interesting only 63% of the time. The difficulty of world history concepts was apparent for these students, and most likely depressed any differential effects for the TTS or reading aloud condition. In a subsequent study, we are examining differences among an older sample of high school students who have taken a world history class in high school.