Learnings and Benefits from Co-Researching: Views of Advisors with Intellectual Disabilities

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is an interesting article. The authors clearly delineate inclusive research and the purpose of the article. As they argue, there are few studies that focus on the opinions and assessments of people with disabilities involved in research processes. In this sense, their work is a valuable contribution.

Equally, they synthesise well the work done over 10 years with a group of advisors and co-researchers (Advisory Committee). The article is well written and the effort of synthesis made by the authors is appreciated.

On the other hand, I would like to add a few comments that the authors could take into account:

1.   The authors say that there are few studies that focus on the opinions and assessments of people with disabilities who participate in research processes, but they do not point to any of them. The work of Nind (2016. Inclusive research as a site for lifelong learning: participation in learning communities. Studies in Adult Education, 48) could be a contribution in this regard. They should cite some of the work they are aware of.

2.   The authors say that "a first selection of documents containing information on assessment and learning was made" (p. 4). So, only the documents analysed contain information on evaluation and process learning? It is possible to think that in some cases the researchers explicitly searched for such information and in others it emerged, is this the case?. Perhaps it can be explained a little better.

3.   The authors state that 'in this study the members of the Advisory Committee did not state either strongly or repeatedly the benefits that they can bring with their participation in the research to all people with intellectual disabilities and/or to the professionals who work with them' and suggest that a dissemination plan for inclusive research could be helpful. Are they referring only to the Spanish context? What other changes would be necessary?

It is a valuable contribution that should be published.

Author Response

REVIEWER 1

Extensive editing of English language and style required.

• We appreciate the concern of this reviewer. Even though the article had already been revised by a professional translator, we did another revision of the English language.

This is an interesting article. The authors clearly delineate inclusive research and the purpose of the article. As they argue, there are few studies that focus on the opinions and assessments of people with disabilities involved in research processes. In this sense, their work is a valuable contribution.

Equally, they synthesise well the work done over 10 years with a group of advisors and co-researchers (Advisory Committee). The article is well written and the effort of synthesis made by the authors is appreciated.

• Thank you very much. We greatly appreciate this detailed feedback.

On the other hand, I would like to add a few comments that the authors could take into account:

1. The authors say that there are few studies that focus on the opinions and assessments of people with disabilities who participate in research processes, but they do not point to any of them. The work of Nind (2016. Inclusive research as a site for lifelong learning: participation in learning communities. Studies in Adult Education, 48) could be a contribution in this regard. They should cite some of the work they are aware of.

• Thank you for pointing this out. It is true that it is such an interesting article and we forgot to include it in our article. So according to the reviewer’s suggestions, we added this reference and seven other references in the Introduction section (see references [8-15]).

2. The authors say that "a first selection of documents containing information on assessment and learning was made" (p. 4). So, only the documents analysed contain information on evaluation and process learning? It is possible to think that in some cases the researchers explicitly searched for such information and in others it emerged, is this the case?. Perhaps it can be explained a little better.

• We agree that there should be more information about the analysed data. Therefore, all the section ‘2.3. Materials Analysed’ has been revised, rewritten and some paragraphs have been added in order to make it more clear.

3. The authors state that 'in this study the members of the Advisory Committee did not state either strongly or repeatedly the benefits that they can bring with their participation in the research to all people with intellectual disabilities and/or to the professionals who work with them' and suggest that a dissemination plan for inclusive research could be helpful. Are they referring only to the Spanish context? What other changes would be necessary?

• Thank you for your comment. Yes, we are referring to our study, which is even more specific than the Spanish context, and we added a sentence specifying this information in the Discussion section. We also added more information about needed changes to implement in our own group in the Conclusion section.

It is a valuable contribution that should be published.

• We want to thank you for the time you took to give us some feedback. We learned a lot from this revision process, which will allow us to continue improving the quality of our work.

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper reports on the benefits people with intellectual disability experienced being part of a research advisory group. however, despite being a group based on inclusive research principles, it’s unclear how people with intellectual disability were involved in the production of this piece of research.

The use of some phrases in the article needs revising to ensure the meaning is conveyed clearly. For example, the use of ‘assessors’ in the title is confusing and I’m not sure what it is referring too. Other uses of odd phrases are vision and assessment (intro), course (methods), assessment and learning (methods) and assessments (discussion).

The introduction focuses heavily on why we need to do inclusive research with less on how to do inclusive research. I recommend revising this, as a field and more broadly, the concept of ‘nothing about us, without us’, is quite well understood and accepted. What’s more useful to the reader is understanding how one goes about conducting a project that embeds inclusive research principles. An article that may be worth including the introduction is Frankena 2019 ‘A consensus statement on how to conduct inclusive health research’. On page 2 in the second paragraph, it’s unclear what you mean by the ‘vision and assessments of people with disabilities’. I think there is a clearer phase – maybe goals/experiences/perspectives

Page 2, line 56: can you add the reference for the interview review your referring too

It would help the reader to include a heading when you start to describe your advisory group. e.g., our work/applying inclusive research to an advisory committee. Can you include how this work is done, what supports are in place for members, what kind of involvement/decisions do they usually make, etc.

From the title of this article and the aim, I expected more active involvement from people with intellectual disability in this: (1) there is no involvement of people with intellectual disability throughout this research approach and (2) the aim to give voice to the those who participated in the advisory committee is mute as you did not collect experiences from individuals themselves. If some of the co-authors are members of the group with intellectual disability, please make this clear in the methods.

Please include a clearer research question and process for selecting the documents included in the analysis (e.g., we wanted to understand X and Y, therefore only documents including A, B, C were included in the analysis). The current description of how these documents were chosen to be included doesn’t sound very methodical.

The analysis approach and results reflect more of a qualitative description rather than a thematic analysis. You haven’t taken the codes and developed themes. As a result, there is no interpretation or depth to the results. This could be rectified by returning to the codes and refining themes (Braun and Clarke 2006 has a detailed process on how to do this) and involving people with intellectual disability in the process.

Page 3, line 99: what do you mean by course? Do you mean the start of your academic year? (NB academic years mean different things internationally)

The results need further consideration. The many codes overlap and report on similar aspects. See above comment about taking the analysis further and turning the codes into themes. Again, the results don’t really match the title – it’s unclear what readers are learning from this experience that hasn’t previously been described. Were there any learnings about how to run an advisory group with people with intellectual disability?

Participant ID system doesn’t make sense and is too confusing to the reader, please simplify

The discussion contextualises the findings in the extant literature, however, a more critical lens is needed to progress the field. For example, what was unique about these findings, what improvements could be made, what aspects of your approach should new committees apply to their work? What things do we need to look at in the future? Will you change the running of your group based on the findings?

Please add to the limitations the lack of involvement of people with intellectual disability in this research paper including lack of involvement in the analysis. Please also discuss the limitations of a documentary analysis.

Author Response

REVIEWER 2

This paper reports on the benefits people with intellectual disability experienced being part of a research advisory group. However, despite being a group based on inclusive research principles, it’s unclear how people with intellectual disability were involved in the production of this piece of research.

• Thank you very much for your Indeed, this article was not developed in an inclusive way. This work (document analysis and article writing) was done by academic instigators. Therefore, specifically in this article, the advisors have not been involved.

The use of some phrases in the article needs revising to ensure the meaning is conveyed clearly. For example, the use of ‘assessors’ in the title is confusing and I’m not sure what it is referring too. Other uses of odd phrases are vision and assessment (intro), course (methods), assessment and learning (methods) and assessments (discussion).

• Thank you for pointing this out. The term ‘assessors’ in the title has been replaced for ‘advisors’. Moreover, as it was unclear what we meant by ‘vision and assessments of people with disabilities’ in different parts of the article, we replaced such terms for the term ‘perceptions’, as we believe it better responds to what we want to express. The term ‘course’ has also been clarified in the article, replaced by ‘academic year (September-June)’.

The introduction focuses heavily on why we need to do inclusive research with less on how to do inclusive research. I recommend revising this, as a field and more broadly, the concept of ‘nothing about us, without us’, is quite well understood and accepted. What’s more useful to the reader is understanding how one goes about conducting a project that embeds inclusive research principles. An article that may be worth including the introduction is Frankena 2019 ‘A consensus statement on how to conduct inclusive health research’.

• Thank you for your comment. Following your suggestion, we added some sentences including the main points to have into account in designing and developing an inclusive research, according to Frankena et al. (2019).

On page 2 in the second paragraph, it’s unclear what you mean by the ‘vision and assessments of people with disabilities’. I think there is a clearer phase – maybe goals/experiences/perspectives.

• As previously mentioned, we agree with the reviewer that it was unclear what we meant by ‘vision and assessments of people with disabilities’ in different parts of the article. So we replaced such terms for the term ‘perceptions’, as we believe it better responds to what we want to express.

Page 2, line 56: can you add the reference for the interview review your referring too

• In page 2, line 56, a sentence has been rephrased to make it clearer, and we finally left it as follows: ‘The literature review that has collected the views of researchers with intellectual disabilities shows that their perceptions focus on different topics, as detailed in the following lines.’

It would help the reader to include a heading when you start to describe your advisory group. e.g., our work/applying inclusive research to an advisory committee. Can you include how this work is done, what supports are in place for members, what kind of involvement/decisions do they usually make, etc.

• We appreciate this suggestion. We replaced the subsection heading (‘2.1. Context: the Advisory Committee of the Diversity Research Group of the University of Girona’) and also extended this subsection, adding some information about how we all work in the Advisory Committee.

From the title of this article and the aim, I expected more active involvement from people with intellectual disability in this: (1) there is no involvement of people with intellectual disability throughout this research approach and (2) the aim to give voice to the those who participated in the advisory committee is mute as you did not collect experiences from individuals themselves. If some of the co-authors are members of the group with intellectual disability, please make this clear in the methods.

• We appreciate the concert of this reviewer. Indeed, this article was not developed in an inclusive way. This work (document analysis and article writing) was done by academic instigators. Therefore, specifically in this article, the advisors have not been involved.However, we consider that the voice of the advisors has not been muted, as we did take into account data from interviews with them, among other data analysed.

Please include a clearer research question and process for selecting the documents included in the analysis (e.g., we wanted to understand X and Y, therefore only documents including A, B, C were included in the analysis). The current description of how these documents were chosen to be included doesn’t sound very methodical.

• We really appreciate this comment, as it allowed us to notice that in the subsections 2.3. and 2.4 there was missing information about the procedure carried out. We added some paragraphs in both subsections. Moreover, the description of the process developed has been rewritten to make it clearer and more accessible.

The analysis approach and results reflect more of a qualitative description rather than a thematic analysis. You haven’t taken the codes and developed themes. As a result, there is no interpretation or depth to the results. This could be rectified by returning to the codes and refining themes (Braun and Clarke 2006 has a detailed process on how to do this) and involving people with intellectual disability in the process.

• We appreciate the reviewer’s concern. We have revised the subsections 2.3 and 2.4, and we added some paragraphs in order to clarify the process we developed.

Page 3, line 99: what do you mean by course? Do you mean the start of your academic year? (NB academic years mean different things internationally)

• According to this comment, the term ‘course’ has been clarified in the article, replaced by ‘academic year (September-June)’.

The results need further consideration. The many codes overlap and report on similar aspects. See above comment about taking the analysis further and turning the codes into themes. Again, the results don’t really match the title – it’s unclear what readers are learning from this experience that hasn’t previously been described. Were there any learnings about how to run an advisory group with people with intellectual disability?

• We agree with the reviewer that the codes partially overlap, but what we wanted to do was to highlight, through each of the codes, one of the main ideas about the perceptions of the advisors regarding their participation in research, their learnings, etc. We tried to go as deep as possible based on the material we had, and this meant an interpretation job, since the members of the advisory committee do not express themselves with many nuances or profusely as other people can do. For this reason, we did not consider it correct to try to group codes identifying broader themes, as our purpose was to identify the specific themes that aroused from the members of the Advisory Committee, which we identified with some codes, which allowed us to describe the participants' vision and perceptions regarding their participation in research.

Participant ID system doesn’t make sense and is too confusing to the reader, please simplify

• We agree that the participant ID system was confusing, so it has been simplified in the article.

The discussion contextualises the findings in the extant literature, however, a more critical lens is needed to progress the field. For example, what was unique about these findings, what improvements could be made, what aspects of your approach should new committees apply to their work? What things do we need to look at in the future? Will you change the running of your group based on the findings?

• Thank you for your comment. Following your suggestions, new information has been added in the Conclusion section, developing some aspects regarding improvements that could be made.

Please add to the limitations the lack of involvement of people with intellectual disability in this research paper including lack of involvement in the analysis. Please also discuss the limitations of a documentary analysis.

• Thank you for this suggestion. We extended the Conclusions section to add that, indeed, it constitutes a limitation the fact that the advisors with intellectual disabilities were not involved in the process of analysis and writing of this article, despite that the authors have tried to be as faithful as possible to the contributions of the advisors.

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to review the manuscript "Learnings from co-researching: views of assessors with intellectual disabilities”. This paper aims to investigate the perspectives of people with intellectual disabilities who were part of an Advisory Committee that has been collaborating in research, on what they learnt and what the research experience meant to them. The topic of this article is interesting and contributes to current literature. However, some changes could be made for further improvement.

Abstract

The abstract exceeds the word limit of 200 words. Please, shorten it.

Line 16. According to the method used, please, add ‘almost’ before ‘10 years’.

Line 20. Authors stated that ‘participants gain in knowledge about their rights’. However, I miss some specific information about this in the results section.

Introduction

Lines 40-41. For readability purposes, this sentence might benefit from some re-wording.

Method

Line 100. Informed consent. Have you stated the possibility to withdraw from the study at any moment?

Line 119. Please, explain this further to clarify each modality and the differences between them.

Line 150. According to Table 2, a communication and a scientific article were also reviewed. Please, state this in the text.

Line 162. For readability purposes, please consider moving Table 2 into line 162.

Table 2. Please, also explain the initials for ‘AC’.

Results

Line 180-182. ‘As set out in Table 2’. Where are the alphanumeric codes in the Table 2?

Line 202. Please, add a space between ‘crossing’ and ‘of’

Line 211-213. To illustrate this, please, include an example of transcription.

Line 264. ‘Social benefits’. Please, also add an example of transcription to illustrate this.

Discussion

Line 343. Please, add a space between ‘out’ and ‘[8,10]‘

Line 376-381. Possible differences among countries have been considered?

Line 137, 244-247. Since participants were adults, have you considered that information about research topics that are important in the childhood and adolescence stages may be missing? Just curious.

References

More references from the last five years should be added.

Line 454. Please, change ‘y’ to ‘;’

Lines 458 and 506. Please, highlight the years.

Lines 461, 479, 496. Please include only the first surname (e.g. García), unless hyphens are used.  

Across the references, please delete the periods (.) between the name of the journal and the publication year.

Line 498. Please review the word ‘Abo’ at the end of the title.

Line 508. Please, add DOI.

Author Response

REVIEWER 3

Thank you for the opportunity to review the manuscript "Learnings from co-researching: views of assessors with intellectual disabilities”. This paper aims to investigate the perspectives of people with intellectual disabilities who were part of an Advisory Committee that has been collaborating in research, on what they learnt and what the research experience meant to them. The topic of this article is interesting and contributes to current literature. However, some changes could be made for further improvement.

• We want to thank you for the time you took to give us some feedback. We believe that this revision process will allow us to continue improving the quality of our work.

Abstract

The abstract exceeds the word limit of 200 words. Please, shorten it.

• We appreciate the reviewer’s concern. However, the abstract is 197 words length.

Line 16. According to the method used, please, add ‘almost’ before ‘10 years’.

• Thank you for pointing this out. It has been replaced in the article for ‘9 years’, which is more accurate.

Line 20. Authors stated that ‘participants gain in knowledge about their rights’. However, I miss some specific information about this in the results section.

• We appreciate the reviewer’s comment. We have slightly modified the Abstract so it matches with the Results obtained.

Introduction

Lines 40-41. For readability purposes, this sentence might benefit from some re-wording.

• Thanks for pointing this out. We have slightly modified the sentence to make it clearer.

Method

Line 100. Informed consent. Have you stated the possibility to withdraw from the study at any moment?

• We appreciate this comment, as it allowed us to notice we did miss such information when writing the article, so we had the opportunity to add a sentence explaining it.

Line 119. Please, explain this further to clarify each modality and the differences between them.

• According to the reviewer’s comment, the paragraph has been slightly extended to clarify some of the elements exposed.

Line 150. According to Table 2, a communication and a scientific article were also reviewed. Please, state this in the text.

• Thank you for pointing this out. The subsection ‘2.3. Materials Analysed’ has been deeply revised and extended to make it richer in terms of information provided.

Line 162. For readability purposes, please consider moving Table 2 into line 162.

• We agree with the reviewer’s comment, so we moved Table 2 at the end of the subsection ‘2.3. Materials Analysed’.

Table 2. Please, also explain the initials for ‘AC’.

• The initials ‘AC’, which stand for Advisory Committee, have been detailed in the Introduction section (page 2), when the words ‘Advisory Committee’ first appear.

Results

Line 180-182. ‘As set out in Table 2’. Where are the alphanumeric codes in the Table 2?

• We really appreciate this comment, as it allowed us to notice that the participant ID system included in the article was not clear, so it has been simplified. Moreover, there was a mistake in the article, and what Table 2 really gathers is the synthesis of the materials analysed. Thanks for the comment, as it allowed us to improve the article.

Line 202. Please, add a space between ‘crossing’ and ‘of’

• Thank you for pointing this out. We have added a space between ‘crossing’ and ‘of’.

Line 211-213. To illustrate this, please, include an example of transcription.

• According to the reviewer’s suggestion, a quote has been added.

Line 264. ‘Social benefits’. Please, also add an example of transcription to illustrate this.

• According to the reviewer’s suggestion, a quote has been added.

Discussion

Line 343. Please, add a space between ‘out’ and ‘[8,10]‘

• Thank you for pointing this out. We have added a space between ‘out’ and ‘[8,10]‘.

Line 376-381. Possible differences among countries have been considered?

• We appreciate the reviewer’s comment. However, in this particular case, we make reference to our context, specifically the group of advisors mentioned throughout the article.

Line 137, 244-247. Since participants were adults, have you considered that information about research topics that are important in the childhood and adolescence stages may be missing? Just curious.

• We appreciate the reviewer’s concern. Thank you for this comment. It is true that this issue constitutes a limitation, and it is something we will take into account for future consideration.

References

More references from the last five years should be added.

• Thank you for the comment. A new reference (Frankena et al., 2019) has been added. Now, the 38% of the references included in the article are from the last 6 years.

Line 454. Please, change ‘y’ to ‘;’

• Thank you for pointing this out. We have changed ‘y’ to ‘;’.

Lines 458 and 506. Please, highlight the years.

• Thank you for pointing this out. We have highlighted the years of both references in the list.

Lines 461, 479, 496. Please include only the first surname (e.g. García), unless hyphens are used.  

• Thank you for pointing this out. According to the reviewer’s suggestion, we have amended such references in the list. However, we discovered that, depending on the version of the word processor used, the references appear automatically wrong again.

Across the references, please delete the periods (.) between the name of the journal and the publication year.

• We appreciate the concern of this reviewer. However, the periods (.) that appear between the name of the journal and the publication year are the ones used in abbreviations, which are made automatically by the text processor when referencing according to the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health citation system.

Line 498. Please review the word ‘Abo’ at the end of the title.

• Thank you for pointing this out. We have written the missing part of the article title.

Line 508. Please, add DOI.

• Thank you for pointing this out. We have added this missing DOI, as well as an ISSN of another article.

Reviewer 4 Report

The frame of reference is updated and provides pertinent information to understand the research

Although the objective is precise, it is not clear what is proposed in terms of the analysis of the writings.

The participants and the method used allows us to understand the processes carried out

It is necessary to address in the methodology how the different sources of information were analyzed, since they are very diverse and it is not clear.

How the different sources are linked, how the codes are generated, it is necessary to review the analysis and propose a transversal theme of analysis

As for the results, it is necessary to delve into these, the richness of the material analyzed is already expressed, they seem preliminary results, so it is necessary to work this section in depth, it will give the richness of the material that has been analyzed.

As for the discussion, it would be interesting to address the issue of how inclusive research advances the need for advisory committees to work for the group of people with intellectual or developmental disabilities in order to position the real social impact of research. inclusive-

Author Response

REVIEWER 4

The frame of reference is updated and provides pertinent information to understand the research. Although the objective is precise, it is not clear what is proposed in terms of the analysis of the writings.

• Thank you for pointing this out, as it allowed us to notice that we did not describe clearly enough in the article which was the purpose of the analysis developed. We added such information in the subsection ‘2.3. Materials Analysed’, as previously it was just mentioned in the Abstract.

The participants and the method used allows us to understand the processes carried out. It is necessary to address in the methodology how the different sources of information were analyzed, since they are very diverse and it is not clear. How the different sources are linked, how the codes are generated, it is necessary to review the analysis and propose a transversal theme of analysis.

• We appreciate the suggestion, as we agree with the reviewer that this information was not clear enough in the article. Therefore, we added a paragraph at the end of the subsection ‘2.3. Materials Analysed’ extending the information and to making it clearer.

As for the results, it is necessary to delve into these, the richness of the material analyzed is already expressed, they seem preliminary results, so it is necessary to work this section in depth, it will give the richness of the material that has been analyzed.

• Thank you for pointing this out. We agree with the reviewer’s comment, so we have revised the Results section and added some paragraphs and some more quotes in order to improve this section of the article.

As for the discussion, it would be interesting to address the issue of how inclusive research advances the need for advisory committees to work for the group of people with intellectual or developmental disabilities in order to position the real social impact of research. inclusive-

• We appreciate the reviewer’s suggestion. We added some paragraphs in the Conclusions section in order to address this concern.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you to the authors for a quick turn around on responding to the comments. In some parts where you have addressed comments, you need to make a step back and reread the section again to check the new content flows and makes sense (see specific comments below).

There still feels a disconnect between the title and introduction and the methods. I think this can, in part, be addressed by revising the title. The results tend to be more about the positives or benefits of being part of the advisory group, rather than learnings. There also needs to be an honest and open discussion about why this research has been done this way (i.e., without involvement of people with intellectual disability). A recent article by Westermann (2022, Being an Inclusive Researcher in a National Consultation Exercise—A Case Study, Social Sciences) demonstrates that it’s possible to have an open and honest discussion about the involvement, or lack therefore, of people with intellectual disability in the write up of a paper.

Introduction – the added text about ref #6 doesn’t connect with the rest of the introduction. Also ‘there is a piece of work…’ is too informal. The introduction in particular would benefit from an edit as there are some phrases / use of words that can be clearer and more concise (e.g., line 65-69 (‘the literature review that has collected the views…’) could be ‘in looking to the literature to understand the views of researchers with intellectual disability, there is limited evidence. Studies report communication is key to establish a climate of trust and a safe space for discussion.’.

Method – likewise to the introduction, in your attempt to address reviewer comments, you now repeat information (e.g., social part of the meeting). Did you have ethics approval for this study?

Can you provide some more context around the interviews with members of the advisory group? what was the purpose of the interviews, what kind of things were discussed, how long did they go for?

Author Response

REVIEWER 2

Thank you to the authors for a quick turn around on responding to the comments. In some parts where you have addressed comments, you need to make a step back and reread the section again to check the new content flows and makes sense (see specific comments below).

• Thank you very much. We greatly appreciate this detailed feedback.

There still feels a disconnect between the title and introduction and the methods. I think this can, in part, be addressed by revising the title. The results tend to be more about the positives or benefits of being part of the advisory group, rather than learnings.

• We agree with the reviewer that there was a disconnection. We slightly modified the title of the article, although still maintaining the word ‘learnings’ in it, as they were something that authors looked for when analysing the documents, and also because they appear in the Results section of the article. Moreover, at the Introduction section, the objective of the article has been reworded with the purpose of clarifying its connection with the title and the methods. Then, a sentence has been also reworded in the Methods section to make it clearer.

There also needs to be an honest and open discussion about why this research has been done this way (i.e., without involvement of people with intellectual disability). A recent article by Westermann (2022, Being an Inclusive Researcher in a National Consultation Exercise—A Case Study, Social Sciences) demonstrates that it’s possible to have an open and honest discussion about the involvement, or lack therefore, of people with intellectual disability in the write up of a paper.

• We totally agree with the reviewer’s comment and concern. We added this issue as a complement of one of the limitations listed in the Conclusions section. Having this discussion is something we really look forward to develop.

Introduction – the added text about ref #6 doesn’t connect with the rest of the introduction. Also ‘there is a piece of work…’ is too informal.

• Thank you for pointing this out. The text about ref #6 has been modified in order to clarify its connection with the rest of the paragraph.

The introduction in particular would benefit from an edit as there are some phrases / use of words that can be clearer and more concise (e.g., line 65-69 (‘the literature review that has collected the views…’) could be ‘in looking to the literature to understand the views of researchers with intellectual disability, there is limited evidence. Studies report communication is key to establish a climate of trust and a safe space for discussion.’.

• We appreciate the reviewer’s suggestion. The sentence ‘the literature review that has collected the views…’ has been modified to make it clearer. Moreover, other parts of the Introduction section have been modified in order to make some sentences clearer for the reader.

Method – likewise to the introduction, in your attempt to address reviewer comments, you now repeat information (e.g., social part of the meeting). Did you have ethics approval for this study?

• Thank you for pointing this out. It is true that we repeated some information. According to the reviewer’s comment, we have revised and improved the Methods section.

Moreover, as it is described in the Institutional Review Board Statement at the end of the article, the different research projects in which the members of the Advisory Committee have participated have had ethical approval and were authorized by the Spanish State Research Agency who funded those projects (protocol codes EDU2011-22945, EDU2014-55460-R, EDU2017-84989-R).

Can you provide some more context around the interviews with members of the advisory group? what was the purpose of the interviews, what kind of things were discussed, how long did they go for?

• We appreciate the reviewer’s comment. We have added some information about the interviews, such as that they had the aim of gathering the individual perceptions of the members of the Advisory Committee regarding their own contribution to the research processes in which they had been involved.

We want to thank you for the time you took to give us some feedback. We learned a lot from this revision process, which will allow us to continue improving the quality of our work.

Reviewer 4 Report

The improvements made to the article are pertinent to the comments made.

Relevant topics have been incorporated into the results and conclusions, which is an important contribution and gives greater robustness to the work.

The article is an important contribution in the field of intellectual disability.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your feedback, which helped us improve our work.