Easy read health information for people with intellectual disabilities: A linguistic discourse analysis. What happens to language when it is simplified?

Introduction: Easy Read health documents prepared for people with intellectual disabilities are often generated from Standard Texts. Language in Easy Read versions is typically assumed to be simpler. However, simplification of language may have unintended consequences.

An open randomized controlled trial of the effects of linguistic simplification and mediation on the comprehension of "easy read" text by people with intellectual disabilities.

Background: This trial aimed to measure the effects of extrinsic and intrinsic factors on users' comprehension of health information provided in adapted written "easy read" material.

Method: Sixty adults with intellectual disabilities undertook The Easy Read Task, randomly allocated with stratification by reading ability to one of four conditions (with and without simplified language/with and without mediation).

Results: Neither linguistic complexity of the text nor mediation independently or combined made a significant difference to the understanding of information.

Developing a new empathy-specific admissions test for applicants to medical schools: A discourse-pragmatic approach.

The ability to empathise with patients is an important professional skill for doctors. Medical students practise this skill as part of their medical education, and are tested on their use of empathy within their final examination. Evidence shows that appropriate training makes a difference but that natural aptitude also plays a role.

Patient-centred communication in British, Italian and Spanish ‘Ask-the-Expert’ healthcare websites.

Existing studies on the online asynchronous consultation mode afforded by ‘Ask-the-Expert’ health websites (e.g. Thomson et al.

DNA ploidy, S-phase, and steroid receptors in more than 127,000 breast cancer patients.

Several potential prognostic factors are available today for patients with breast cancer, and many more are being identified and studied. To evaluate the clinical utility of these factors, it will be necessary to measure them on a large number of patients, and then follow these patients so that multivariate survival analyses can be performed. The Oncology Research Network was established in 1986 by the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and Nichols Institute Reference Laboratories in order to evaluate the clinical utility of new prognostic factors for patients with primary breast cancer.