The Autism Society Event and Education Recordings Archive

Students without the ability to verbally communicate are often overlooked as literacy learners. Literacy is a necessary skill for overcoming roadblocks to communication and improving quality of life. Through teaching vocabulary and the framework of language, students are better able to participate in reciprocal interactions and experience enhanced personal relationships. Many non-verbal students are struggling for literate citizenship. We as educators are tasked with the challenge of providing this opportunity to all students. Because of misunderstanding and the predominant beliefs around the skills required for literacy and the abilities of those who cannot speak, this opportunity is rendered invisible to too many.  The task of recognizing literate potential among our most challenged students has become daunting to many educators. However, given the wealth of evidenced-based practices around us, and the advances of technology, this task is fully attainable and should be made available to all students.

Even still people with autism are often overlooked as literacy learners. While many schools are moving towards including students with disabilities into general education settings, these students are often not provided with purposeful and meaningful academic experiences and instruction. In this presentation, participants will gain an understanding of how literacy skills improve communication and enhance quality of life.

“There are many benefits of gaining literacy skills for individuals with limited speech including expanding communication options significantly, increasing perceptions of competence, increasing self-esteem, providing visual supports to enhance language learning, and providing visual supports to potentially facilitate speech production.” (Light & McNaughton)

Given the necessity of literacy skills for people with ASD, it is critical to focus instructional time using techniques that have been proven effective.

Using a sight-word approach that is highly repetitive, for students who have not mastered early reading and language concepts, has shown high probabilities of success. This type of approach has been proven significantly effective for students on the autism spectrum.  But what about students that do not speak, or who have the opportunity to communicate via an augmentative or speech generating device?  Often such programs seem unattainable or inappropriate, however, given evidenced-based practices they actually are quite within reach for all students.

Our goal is to have participants learn and be able to adapt any evidenced-based reading program, using evidenced-based learning techniques proven effective for students with autism, and including those who use assistive technology to communicate. These practices include, prompting, reinforcement, visual supports, modeling, scripting, structured play, and task analysis (Wong, et al., 2014).

As educators we know that "Instructional strategies should be based on individual learning styles and should take into consideration and capitalize upon the aspects of unique learning styles" (Autism Task Force, 2003). Throughout this presentation we will use video examples, data, and evidenced-based practices to demonstrate the positive experience of providing access to the critical skill of literacy for all students.

References

Autism Task Force (2003). Service Guidelines for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder/Pervasive Developmental Disorder (ASD/PDD): birth through twenty-one. Ohio: Ohio Developmental Disabilities Council.

Light, J.& McNaughton, D. (2010). Improving literacy outcomes for individuals with autism spectrum disorders and limited speech.

http://aacliteracy.psu.edu/index.php/page/show/id/17

Wong, C., Odom, S., Hume, K., Cox, A. W., Fettig, A., Kucharczyk, S., et al. (2014). Evidence-Based Practices for Children, Youth, and Young Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Chapel Hill: Autism Evidence-Based Practice Review Group, Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute.

Learning Objectives: