Overcoming Challenges in Questioning People with Intellectual Disabilities Regarding Their Digital Media Usage: Lessons Learned from the EVE4all Project

People with Intellectual Disabilities (ID) are often excluded from research due to a number of obstacles in questioning them (e.g. cognitive and linguistic abilities. To find out about common methods of questioning people with ID, a rapid review was conducted for this paper in December 2023. The evaluation of the research methods used by the studies in our sample shows that questionnaires, followed by interviews, are the most frequently used methods of gathering data and surveying people with intellectual disabilities. Those “classic” methods often do not meet the requirements of people with ID and other persons who have communication or intellectual impairments. This paper presents challenges and difficulties in questioning people with ID in the context of media and internet usage. It also tries to explain reasons for often not including them in current research. In addition, experiences from the EVE4all project are illustrated, in which several methodological approaches were used to ask people with ID about their opinion of the Easy Reading Add-On. Finally, new survey methods suitable for interviewing people with ID will be presented as examples.