Promoting Accessible Research for Children With Intellectual Disabilities; Lessons Learnt From Adaptations Through the Covid‐19 Pandemic

Le résumé fourni par la source

The intellectual disability (ID) research landscape has seen a considerable transformation over the past decade, with a new emphasis on inclusive and open research practices being prioritised (de Haas et al. 2022).Inclusivity in research is an umbrella construct that at its heart requires research to be truly collaborative, accessible and driven by the interests of the population for whom it is about (Garratt et al. 2022;Walmsley and Johnson 2003), with evidence of inclusivity in practice increasing throughout the field of ID research.Concomitant with this transformation in ID research have been paradigmatic shifts to the wider research landscape over the past 4 years, with many research studies requiring wholesale redesign to be compatible with the remote, restricted environment conferred by the Covid-19 pandemic.Common adaptations include research studies moving online (Song et al. 2020), utilising remote technology to collate data (eye tracking- [Vos et al. 2022;Fraser et al. 2025]; video conferencing software- [Humphries et al. 2022]; mobile apps- [Wijesooriya et al. 2020]) and adopting a citizen science approach to minimise researcher contact with participants (Dow et al. 2022).We discuss how these research design adaptations, necessary for research to be compatible with a remote context, may have inadvertently had widescale benefit for children with ID for whom traditional research practices were often inaccessible.First, we will highlight adaptations necessary for ID research to be compatible with the remote context of the pandemic, before discussing how these approaches may support wider research adaptations seen across the research landscape to promote more replicable and open science.Finally, we will provide practical suggestions for ID researchers, discussing how these two approaches are compatible to promote better research practices.ID researchers designing future studies should endeavour to incorporate some of the lessons learned from research designs created within the context of the Covid-19 pandemic to promote a more accessible and inclusive environment for people with ID overall.

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