Drawing a Blank: Reading Comprehension for children with ASD

1. Drawing a Blank: Reading Comprehension for children with ASD Katie Terry, LISW-S kterry437@hotmail.com

2. Objectives • Understand how the unique features of ASD impact reading comprehension • Know skills that can be taught to a child with ASD to increase reading comprehension • Understand some intervention ideas and techniques tailored to the needs of children with ASD

3. Emily Iland, M.Awww.readingautism.com Emily D. Iland, M.A. 26893 Bouquet Canyon Road, Suite C-333 Saugus, CA 91350 (661) 297-4205, Fax (661) 297-4033 www.asdatoz.com or www.emilyiland.com AAPC Publishing (2011) www.asperger.net ISBN: 978-1-934575-77-2

4. The Simple View of Reading R= D x C Reading is a product of this process If you can decode and have Linguistic Comprehension, you are reading! But…a person can have problems with D, C or both! • Gough and Tunmer, 1986

5. Problems Defined: • If you have problems with decoding- Dyslexia • If you have problems with comprehension- Hyperlexia • Hyperlexia- “Strong mechanical word recognition with comparatively poor comprehension” Grigorenko, E.L, Klin, Al, Pauls, D.L. Senft, R., Hooper, C., and Volkmar, F. 20002.

6. Hyperlexia is like a Trojan Horse • It looks like a gift…but it isn’t!

7. How features of ASD affect reading

8. Language & Communication • Both receptive and expressive vocabulary can be impaired, causing “vocabulary gap” relative to neurotypical children • Auditory and language processing irregularities • Difficulty with images, imagination, and imagery • Ability to understand word meanings is hampered • Can’t use word meanings to organize, categorize, or recall information

9. Language & Communication • Abstract and inferential skills are underdeveloped • Conceptualization, reasoning, logical skills • Generating inferences • Resolving ambiguity • Understanding cause and effect • Monitoring comprehension • Recognizing and interpreting nonverbal cues described in literature

10. Pronoun Difficulty Problems understanding pronouns in print, and to whom the pronouns refer HIS? HERS? Anaphoric Cueing

12. Language & Communication • Difficulties in conversation skills, including asking questions • Play skills, like imitative play, pretend play, and imagination are lacking, so child may not understand those words/roles in stories • Can reduce understanding of narratives, plot, action, and impair ability to create visual images of unfamiliar or fantasy material

13. Social Features of ASD • Limited play skills, shared enjoyment can mean less shared social activities, including shared book reading • Affects cognitive development, learning • Limited joint attention means children may not pay attention to a book at the bidding of another • Limited social experiences (word knowledge and world knowledge) means less understanding text

14. Social Features • Lack of social understanding means people with ASD miss the cues in environment, including text • May not be able to relate to characters and situations, thus integrating the story with their own experiences • Problems with theory of mind may mean children can’t understand the thoughts, feelings, inter-actions, behaviors, or intentions of characters; including recognizing deceit, lies, author’s intentions

15. Shades of Meaning • Shades of Meaning Activity (Iland) • Teaches synonyms, expands vocabulary • Revels hidden meaning behind words • Teaches connotation; the emotion and intention attached to specific words • Clarifies the perspective and intention of characters or the author (social thinking)

16. Comprehension Activity • Red Group Blue Group • Melancholy -silly • Sad -amusing • Gloomy -funny • Depressed -hysterical • Green Group Yellow Group • Idle -dry • Lazy -thirsty • Slothful -parched • Lethargic -dehydrated

17. Social Features: Lack of Imagination • Difficulty understanding text that is imaginative, beyond the scope of person’s actual concrete experiences • Affects ability to write creatively

18. Social Features • A common compensation strategy is the reliance on safe, practiced, or borrowed responses that may appear novel or original • Tip for social features: don’t ask “If” ask “When” • Avoid the unknown for a person with ASD • Relate to the known or already experienced Doyle, B., Iland, E. 2004

19. Behavioral Features & ASD • Restrictive and repetitive behaviors • Children with autism are specialists in a generalist world; have a deep and narrow understanding • Typical children have a broad and shallow understanding • Causes perimeter walking on playground

20. Behavioral Features & ASD • Poverty of Experience – is not only by the poor, but children with ASD too. They do get exposure, but don’t benefit from it (Iland) • Limited background knowledge and exposure to wide range of topics and language that goes with it is diminished • Means grade level or general interest material is less familiar, less interesting or motivating

21. Behavioral Features & ASD • Restricted and repetitive interests means understanding can become contextualized, and bound to direct experience • Can affect generalization of knowledge • Difficulty with multiple meanings of words • Limits interest, attention, motivation • Limits engaging behaviors that could widen a child’s scope of interaction

22. On the bright side…. • You can use favorite and preferred topics to strengthen comprehension • Illustrate points and practice skills • Focusing first may be highly motivating • Benefit from rules, routines, and lists • Possibly use as a reinforcer • Apply a formula to words

23. Apply a Formula to Words • Teach how to break words into parts and memorize roots, affixes, and suffixes • Reward them for following rules • Start with breaking down words from the person’s area of interest full = source + Re +

24. Use the Dissect Mnemonic • D Discover the word’s context • I Isolate the prefix • S Separate the suffix • S Say the stem or root word • E Examine the step or root word • C Check with someone • T Try the dictionary • Lenz & Hughes, 1990, see Bremer,Clapper and Deschler

25. Neurology & Autism • Neurological evidence explains the causes and brain based differences for the behaviors • Newest paradigm sees Autism as a Disorder of Information Processing • As complexity increases, information processing decreases for those with ASD • Minshew & Williams, 2008

26. Complex Processing • Processing multiple modalities (visual, auditory) • Multi-tasking • Social engagement, communication and thinking are complex processes • Highest demands= greatest difficulty • Central Coherence theory

27. Central Coherence • Integrating the parts and the whole: synthesis • Getting the point • Separating relevant from irrelevant • Understanding cause and effect • Predicting and inferring • Paying attention to the right things • Sense the order in the material • Being able to sequence or re tell the story • Uta Frith, 2010

28. Research tells us….. • Have to look at individual and tailor intervention • Strategies used with students with ASD must take in cognitive profile as well as individual variations • Some methods for students with other learning differences may be appropriate, some will not be effective for children with ASD • (O’Connor and Klein, 2004)

29. Focused interventions • Define the specific reading problems • Find effective ways to address them • Use known strengths: concrete, visual, spatial, routines • Be aware of prerequisite skills • Laying concomitant tracks • Teaching how to understand the immediate story • Teaching strategies learners can apply on their own

30. Avoid Strategies that aren’t a good fit • Dictionary definitions to teach vocabulary • Having students read text and answer questions • May not work • Activation of prior knowledge • Cloze task • (O’Connor and Klein, 2008)

31. Research says “Yes” to… • Informative title and primer passage • Pre-teaching facts • Related narratives Wahlberg 2001, Wahlberg, and Magliano, 2004, Colasent & Griffith, 1998, O’Connor and Klein, 2004

32. Primer Passages English Language Learner materials often contain primer passages 1. provide a clear title for a passage that does not have one or is unclear 2. prepare the primer passage that contains all of the main ideas of the passage to be read 3. after reading, ask readers to make a link between the title and the primer passage 4. Discuss with reader how title, primer passage, and the passage itself all relate to one another.

33. Related Narrative Passages • Adolescents with autism were more successful with recall and oral retelling when Thematic Stories were used as content • 3 stories on same subject • Student draw or write about subject • Read aloud • Thematic stories, multiple exposures and reading aloud may benefit students with weak auditory comprehension (Colasent, R., & Griffith, P.L. 1998)

34. Anaphoric Cueing • Address difficulty with pronouns • Self monitoring of understanding • Asking questions • Clarification of ambiguity • Geraldo and Scott have been friends for a long time. They are on the same baseball team

35. Anaphoric Cueing • Cut and paste text into word document 3X. • Use “find and replace” to substitute names and possessives into subject pronouns and possessive pronouns (Iland) • Have child practice on their own; periodically ask “who?”

36. Teaching Vocabulary • Direct, explicit instruction before reading for unfamiliar or key words. • Focus on words with multiple meanings • Homographs- sound alike, different meanings • “She had a tear in her eye when she got a tear in her dress.” • Use synonyms for growing vocabulary; instantly clarifies meaning without a dictionary

37. Synonym Strategy (Iland) • Types a selected text or have student type into a word document • Ask the student to pre-read the text and use the computer to highlight any words he/she does not know • Look up the synonyms; copy into original text • Have the student re-read the text with the substitutive, familiar words. • Check for understanding of the passage.

38. Benefits of Synonym Strategy • Defines words in context • Links known with unknown • Quick and easy • Maintains train of thought • Useful tool for life • Consider textbooks in computer format as an accommodation, or scholastic DVD

39. Use visual strategies • Highlighting • Removable highlight tape • Buy used books already highlighted • Use visuals to explicitly teach idioms: • Literal v. figurative meaning • Skate on thin ice • Kick the bucket • Hand graphic organizers for free at: http://freeology.com/graphicorgs/page4.php

40. Use low cost technology • Use voice threads: still photos with narration • www.voicethread.com • Google images- children with ASD are visual learners: Example: • gravity • Albatross

41. Use Media Strategies • Show movies before reading books • Read plays before reading books • www.imsdb.com • www.simplyscripts.com Summarize and sequence the events Analyze the plot, characters, themes, and vocabulary Turn on the closed captions on the TV (maps the speech into print)

42. In conclusion • ASD is a complex, neurological disorder that affects auditory processing, central coherence, and dynamic intelligence • Hyperlexia is a Trojan Horse, but strengths may work out over time • Reading comprehension strategies need to be tailored to the individual • Go heavy on the visual and electronic helps for children with ASD.