People with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience reading comprehension difficulties, often misinterpreting complex texts, metaphors, and idioms. We have developed and tested a new assistive technology tool for adaptive, personalized text simplification, called Open Book. This tool is an open-sourced, online platform that uses Natural Language Processing with the specific aim of assisting reading and aiding understanding of written text for people with ASD. The accessibility and effectiveness of Open Book was tested by examining the differences in text comprehension scores between the original texts and texts that were simplified by Open Book tool, randomly allocated to study participants. Two hundred forty-three participants (153 adults and 90 adolescents) with high-functioning ASD were recruited in the UK, Spain, and Bulgaria. Regarding the primary outcome, results showed that both adults and adolescents with ASD gave more correct answers for the simplified ( M = 11.2, SD = 4.1) than original texts ( M = 10, SD = 4.1; p < 0.001). This finding was consistent across age groups and countries. Regarding the secondary outcome, when participants were asked to blindly rate how easy was to understand each text, simplified texts were rated as easier ( M = 7.6, SD = 2.4) to understand than the original texts ( M = 8.7, SD = 2.6; p < 0.001). The Open Book software seems to have the potential to be a useful tool in assisting reading among people with ASD. Our findings support our primary hypothesis that texts simplified through Open Book were easier to comprehend compared to original texts.

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The article analyses current understanding of clinical psychology as a field of professional activity of psychologists in medicine and public health. It reveals the main traditional and new areas of activity of a medical psychologist in clinical and preventive medicine. Main directions and forms of clinical psychologist’ work in healthcare system is reviewed. The role of clinical psychologist as part of a multidisciplinary team is outlined and the main models of multidisciplinary teams in the field of medical rehabilitation are analyzed. We identified the main problems and the goals in this area, which solution is necessary to create an effective system for the provision of medical, psychological and social assistance to the population. The article shows that clinical psychology plays a key role within the multidisciplinary approach to assistance of patients and their relatives in specialized psychiatric or addiction treatment, psychotherapy, as well as in general medical practice. One of the main tasks of clinical psychology is considered humanization and personalization of the entire process of medical care, protection from inconvenient impact of technization of medicine on patient and doctor, narrow specialization of health services. Some of the organizational and legal barriers hindering full integration of medical psychologist into the healthcare system and effective realization of the goals of medical and psychological activities were highlighted. The prospects for the development of clinical psychology in healthcare in the theoretical, methodological, substantive and organizational-legal aspects are determined. It is emphasized that in order to realize the potential of clinical psychology, constant improvement of theory and methodology, the development of effective medical and psychological technologies for diagnosis, correction, and rehabilitation are necessary. And at the same time, it is important to create organizational and legal conditions for the full cooperation of clinical psychologist with specialists in other areas.