Developing Materials for People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities and Extreme Low Literacy
About the Project
RTI and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) created an evidence-based tool to help people develop communication products for adults who have intellectual and developmental disabilities and extreme low literacy and their caregivers.
The Challenge
People with intellectual or developmental disabilities, and especially those with very low literacy, may have challenges understanding messages—even those that meet current plain language and clear communication standards. As a result, they often do not have the information they need during public health emergencies. There are few standardized or evidence-based tools to guide material development for this audience.
Our Solution
Because of the unique communication needs of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and extreme low literacy (IDD/ELL) and the lack of existing guidelines, RTI International and its partners created a tool to help support CDC communication specialists with the development of products for adults with IDD/ELL. The tool reflects findings from a survey of caregivers of adults with IDD/ELL, lessons learned from audience testing of select materials for individuals with IDD/ELL, and a review of the research related to increasing understanding of information by adults with IDD/ELL.
A Best Practices section for writing for people with disabilities emphasizes the importance of tone, focus, and the use of empowering language in addition to providing valuable supporting resources to guide text development.
The tool provides detailed questions to inform the development of personas representing specific audience members or groups. This step can help to ensure clear, effective, accessible information that meets the objective.
The user guide provides a description of each principle, along with examples and tips to help ensure the communication product is clear and actionable for the audience.
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