JCPSLP Vol 22 No 1 2020

Expanding possibilities: Foci on reading and interdisciplinary practices

Resource reviews

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation website

Kerrin Watter

Discourse-level reading comprehension deficits occur across populations and arise from a range of factors (e.g., developmental or acquired disorders). Across all age groups, engaging clients in discourse-level reading comprehension can be a challenge, particularly for struggling readers, and clients who report they “don’t like to read” or were not “big readers” pre-morbidly. While a range of published resources and graded reading stimuli are available, these can often have varied or low salience with our clients. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) website (http://www.abc.net.au) is a publicly available resource that provides discourse-level reading stimuli across a range of topics and content areas, including news/current events, sports, rural and regional stories, arts and music. Content on the site is grouped into 24 topic areas which can be accessed from the homepage. Specific topics can also be found via the search function, which is particularly useful for clients requiring highly salient materials to engage in reading rehabilitation/therapy. While my experience of using the site has been for older clients (older teens and adults), I note there are specific sections dedicated to children and adolescents. The website provides information in a range of text types, including expository, narrative, descriptive and persuasive texts; transcripts of audio (or TV) reports; and texts of varying length and complexity. This is useful for clinicians who are targeting specific types of text at specific levels of reading. For example, “news” articles are typically expository and are useful for fact-based reading comprehension; while texts from the “analysis and opinion” pages are useful for targeting more complex, inferential reading comprehension. For reading tasks, the website is best viewed in traditional (not mobile) view. Discourse-level texts are presented as text or text plus pictures (+/- embedded video and audio). While the additional visual information may support text comprehension, additional links and advertising may also distract readers. Modifying the page view by using “reader view” in your web browser enhances readability (by removing links and advertising) and presents the article as text with limited graphics. Text from the “reader view” (or regular web-view) can be printed, read on screen, or copied and pasted into a word processing document for modification. Once copied and pasted, clinicians can modify the text to suit individual client needs. Common aspects to modify include overall story length, sentence length and complexity, and complexity and flow of information. Print size can also be modified for clients with visual impairments.

The main drawback I have experienced is that, like any webpage, the ABC’s website (layout, function, format and content) changes over time. Programs I previously relied upon for transcripts of lengthy discourse have been discontinued or have become podcasts (without transcripts). However, searching for the term “transcript” identifies lengthier texts on the site. Overall, these drawbacks are small when compared to the breadth of content available, and the likelihood of finding interesting and salient stimuli for clients. Viewing the site today revealed articles on data privacy, Garlic the cloned kitten, managing feral pigs, drug testing at festivals, gender politics and goat yoga. As the vast majority of website content is free to access online (funded via the Australian government), this is a great resource and well worth my 10 cents per day. Lyons, R., & McAllister, L. (2019). Qualitative research in communication disorders: An introduction for students and clinicians. J & R Press, Ltd. ISBN 978 1 907826 38 2; https://www.jr-press.co.uk/qualitative-research- communicationdisorders.html Dr Brooke Ryan Qualitative Research in Communication Disorders: An Introduction for Students and Clinicians by Lyons and McAllister is a wonderful showcase of the positive contribution qualitative research can make to the speech language pathology profession. The book is an invaluable resource for anyone who has a “what” or “how” research question and is navigating the complexity of using qualitative research methods for research in communication disorders. The seven sections of this book are detailed sufficiently for an introductory text and are easy to read and understand. Section I provides an overview of definitions related to qualitative research, and a useful comparison

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JCPSLP Volume 22, Number 1 2020

www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au