In our studies at the University of Georgia with students with mild to moderate intellectual disabilities, we used an interactive computer-based program to teach students how to develop a graphic organizer in order to help them better comprehend recipes presented to them in e-text format.
We used an interactive computer-based program to teach students with mild to moderate intellectual disabilities how to develop a graphic organizer in order to help them better comprehend recipes presented to them in e-text format. Specifically, students had access to recipes presented in electronic text format with illustrative supports. The first two slides of each recipe listed the ingredients and appliances or utensils needed similar to the examples presented below.
Once the students listened to the first step of the recipe, they were asked to choose the picture representing that step and place that picture on their graphic organizer. An example of these slides are presented below.
At the completion of each of the e-text recipes (presented via PowerPoint), students had a pictorial graphic organizer to help them retell the steps of the recipe or actually follow the recipe to make the item. The computer-based e-text recipes did assist the three target students to better “retell” the steps of the recipes and in the subsequent cooking of the foods. We believe that e-text alone or in combination with other supports such as video and graphics may not be enough for overcoming issues students with more significant cognitive disabilities have with working memory and comprehension. These students may need an additional level of support, such as some external organizational structure/tool (e.g., pictorial graphic organizer) that may assist them in storing, retrieving, and organizing information as they access it.