ASA's 36th National Conference on Autism Spectrum Disorders (July 13-16, 2005)

The content of our session will reflect the presenters' experiences working with parents and teachers of young children with autism spectrum disorder. Since attending the weeklong Summer Institute on Literacy and Augmentative and Alternative Communication we have been working with teachers and parents who struggle to teach reading to students who do not respond to the typical models of reading instruction. We have found that some current and common school reading programs do not address the unique learning needs of the individual with autism spectrum disorder. While many programs have proven effective for remediating specific reading skills for students with a variety of disabilities, they frequently do not meet the broad needs of students with ASD. These reading programs can be incorporated into a balanced reading model, but individually they may not address all areas of a complete reading curriculum.

Teaching literacy skills to children with autism has presented numerous challenges for educators for many years. In fact, because of their communication deficits or the limitations of our ability to evaluate children with autism, many students were historically thought to be incapable of learning to read and write. Parents and teachers are still hard-pressed to find creative ways to teach reading and writing to children with significantly limited vocabularies, difficulties with shifting attention and a tendency to focus on irrelevant stimuli. Because of their excellent memory skills and lack of success in traditional reading instruction, many educators resorted to teaching functional sight words to students with autism. The ultimate goal of teaching these children to read silently with comprehension was thought to be beyond reach. Even more capable students with autism or Asperger's Disorder have had their success in reading limited by their restricted and repetitive interests, difficulties with listening comprehension, and limitations in background knowledge.

With a grant from the Children's Miracle Network, we were able to purchase software, voice output devices and books for families. We provided instruction on how to adapt books to meet the children's needs and engage them in joint reading experiences. After participating in the training and utilizing the technologies provided, the parents reported significant changes in their children's reading behavior, such as time of engagement and amount and quality of interaction.

We will share some best practices for teaching literacy to individuals on the autism spectrum and strategies that have shown dramatic impact on the literacy behaviors of some of our students. These practices include assessing the child's reading level through adapted assessment tools, using assistive technologies for access to curriculum, and providing continuity of literacy instruction throughout the school day. We will present the rationale for using a balanced approach to literacy, along with methods used to informally assess reading levels. We will share videotaped case studies of children at a variety of reading levels and the interventions we used at home and school to improve their literacy skills. These students range in age from 3 to10 years, with a wide spectrum of communication, behavior and social challenges.

The participant learning objectives are to: 1) Identify the four parts of the Balanced Literacy model: guided reading, self-selected reading, writing and working with words. Traditionally, we have taught reading and writing only after children have mastered listening and speaking. The current view suggests that reading, writing, speaking and listening develop concurrently and are inter-related. This knowledge opens the door of literacy to children who have limited verbal expression. 2) Understand the benefits of informal reading assessment. Before beginning reading instruction, teachers and parents should have some idea of where to start. The typical reading assessment tool may not be accessible to some students and needs to be adapted so the students can perform the task while maintaining the integrity of the instrument. 3) Familiarize participants with some technologies and materials that support literacy learning for children with autism spectrum disorders.