Literacy Instruction for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

1. Literacy Instruction for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders Tina K. Veale, Ph.D., CCC-SLP Eastern Illinois University

2. What is Literacy? • Literacy is “interactive, constructive, strategic, and meaning-based.”(Steelman, Pierce, & Koppenhaver, 1994; p. 201) • It involves comprehension and use of written texts. • “To be literate is to be able to gather and construct meaning using written language.” (Steelman, Pierce, & Koppenhaver, 1994; p. 201) • Literacy is a term that is “used broadly to refer to the mastery of language, it both its spoken and written forms.”(Foley, 1994) • End results of literacy instruction: • Comprehend graphic symbols • Produce a product that can be understood by others

3. Language and Literacy • Intrinsically interconnected • Language knowledge forms the basis for literacy. • Language competence opens the door to literacy. • Language disorders complicate the development of literacy. • Literacy development often augments language skills. • In children with ASD: • Frequent shared story book reading increased oral language and attention; decreased verbal outbursts, echolalia, and stereotypies (Colasent &Griffith, 1998; Koppenhaver & Erickson, 2003).

4. Literacy and Autism • Children with autism are often excluded from standard literacy curricula because of misguided beliefs that they are incapable of learning to read (Colasent & Griffith, 1998; Koppenhaver & Erickson, 2003). • Exclusion from reading instruction is due in part to difficulty demonstrating reading readiness (Mirenda & Erickson, 2000). • Studies show that children with autism who do not show classic reading readiness abilities can progress in reading(Broun, 2004; Colasent & Griffith, 1998; Craig & Sexton Telfer, 2005; Koppenhaver & Erickson, 2003; Wolfberg, 1999).

5. Importance of Literacy • Federal laws mandate that all children be taught to read using strategies that are supported through research: • No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) • Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA) • The National Reading Panel (2000) identified five critical aspects of reading instruction: • Phonological and phonemic awareness • Phonics • Fluency • Vocabulary • Comprehension

6. Pre-literacy Skills • Maintain appropriate body posture to view text • Orient text to upright position • Turn pages at appropriate times • Visually discriminate pictures from print • Focus on printed text • Track print from left to right • Track print from top to bottom

7. Phonological Awareness • “Conscious sensitivity of the sound structure of language.” (Lane, Pullen, Eisele, & Jordan, 2002; p. 101) • Understanding that words are made up of sounds. • Recognizing and manipulating sounds in spoken words • Ex: What is the first sound in the word horse?” • Ex: Tell me a word that rhymes with bow. • Involves both oral and aural skills (Troia, 2004) • Develops from preschool through elementary school ages. • Children become aware that: • Speech is made up of words. • Words are made up of smaller units. • Words have onsets. • Words have rimes. • Words are made up of individual sounds (phonemic awareness) (Goswami, 2001; Liberman, Shankweiler, Fischer, & Carter, 1974; Treiman, 1983; 1985)

8. Phonemic Awareness Skills • Isolate sounds in words • What is the last sound in ribbon? • Identify common sounds between words • What sound is the same in the words teen and bat? • Segment sounds in words • How many sounds are in the word wash? • Break the word dish into its sounds: d-i-sh • Categorize words based on their sounds • Which word does not belong: fan, foot, cap? • Delete sounds in words • What word can do make when you take day away from Sunday? • What word do you make when you take /d/ off of hide? • Blend sounds together • What word do these sounds make: /k/-/ai/-/t/?

9. Evidence: Phonological Awareness • PA is a prerequisite to reading proficiency in neurotypical children (Armbruster, Lehr, & Osborn, 2001; Torgesen, 2000; Troia, 2004). • Reciprocal relationship between phonological awareness and reading (Perfetti, Beck, Bell, & Hughes, 1987; Stanovich, 1986, 1998; Yopp, 1992) • PA predicts later reading ability: • In neurotypical children (Allor, 2002; Torgesen, 2000) • In children with Down syndrome (Connors, Atwell, Rosenquist, & Sligh, 2001; Kay-Raining Bird, Cleave, & McConnell, 2000) • PA must be explicitly taught to children with disabilities • Even when they understand sound-symbol associations, they need help using this knowledge to decode words (Snowling, Hulme, & Mercer, 2002).

10. Evidence: Phonological Awareness • Children with ASD: • Respond to similar phonological awareness interventions as typical children (Calhoon, 2001). • Increased phonological awareness and reading through computer-assisted errorless learning tasks engaged over 3-4 months (Heimann, Nelson, Tjus, & Gillberg, 1995). • Increased phonological awareness skills using computer-assisted program over 1-2 months (Tjus, Heimann, & Nelson, 1998). • 8 year old with HFA increased PA, spelling, and spontaneous written composition following one-on-one computer-assisted instruction; 13 year old with significant cognitive deficits did not show gains (Basil & Reyes, 2003).

11. Instruction: Phonological Awareness • Identify the number of syllables in given words. • Identify the onsets of words. • Identify the rimes of words. • Identify individual sounds in words. • Identify similar sounds in two different words. • Categorize words by sound patterns. • Segment words into individual sounds. • Blend sounds together to form words. • Produce new words by deleting, changing, or adding sounds. (Richard & Veale, 2009)

12. Phonics • Specific knowledge of letter-sound associations. • Reading instruction that helps students make connections between letters (graphemes) and sounds (phonemes). • Teaches students to “represent speech with letters.” (O’Connor & Bell, 2004, p. 486) • Once students master phonics, they can apply this knowledge to read and spell unfamiliar words. • Evidence: Phonics • Since children with ASD learn rule-based or rote information readily, phonics is often a relative strength(Frith, 2003; Lord & Paul, 1997; Minshew, Goldstein, Taylor, & Siegel, 1994).

13. Instruction: Phonics • Match consonant sounds with corresponding letters • Match vowel sounds with corresponding letters • Sort written words based upon patterns of letters • Construct words using letters • Identify words read aloud by others • Decode single words (Richard & Veale, 2009)

14. Vocabulary: Sight Word Recognition • Reading vocabulary is comprised of sight words: • Words recognized from memory that do not need to be decoded. • Dependent upon vocabulary knowledge. • Children with autism: • As preschoolers, are significantly delayed in vocabulary relative to their nonverbal ages (Charman, Drew, Baird, & Baird, 2003). • Continue to show limited vocabulary as adults (Howlin, Goode, Hutton, & Rutter, 2004). • May know how to read some words, but continue to evidence language impairment and reading comprehension problems (Church, Alisanski, & Amanullah, 2000; Craig & Sexton Telfer, 2005; Diehl, Ford, & Federico, 2005; Koppenhaver & Erickson, 2003).

15. Evidence: Vocabulary/Sight Word Instruction • Children with ASD: • One third of children with ASD who read have trouble with sight word recognition (Nation, et al., 2006). • Showed the most improvement in sight word recognition when taught via one-on-one computer-assisted instruction vs. traditional approaches (Coleman-Martin, Heller, Cihak, & Irvine, 2005).

16. Instruction: Sight Word Recognition • Match pictures to written sight words. • Identify written sight words. • Copy sight words. • Write sight words from dictation. • Read individual sight words aloud. • Read sight words in connected text. (Richard & Veale, 2009)

17. Reading Fluency • Accurately reading text aloud using a typical rate, proper phrasing and expression. • Requires knowledge of one’s audience. • Evidence: Individuals with ASD • Two-thirds of children with ASD who read have significant problems with reading comprehension (Nation, et al., 2006) • Peer tutoring of 3 first to second grade students with HFA led to improved reading fluency with increases in number of words read and reduction in number of errors (Kamps, Barbetta, Leonard, & Delquadri, 1994). • Peer tutoring of 2 children with HFA by fifth graders proved effective in increasing mean rates of reading (Kamps, Locke, Delquadri, & Hall, 1989).

18. Instruction: Reading Fluency • Listen to stories read aloud to a group. • Participate in story retelling. • Read in unison with an adult. • Participate in shared reading experiences. • Engage in repeated reading. • Participate in independent reading. • Read a story as a performance to a group. (Richard & Veale, 2009)

19. Reading Comprehension • Dependent upon cognitive, language, and memory abilities. • As language complexity of connected text increases, comprehension becomes more challenging. • Children must learn to comprehend narratives, and later expository text. • Children with autism have notoriously poor reading comprehension (Mayes & Calhoun, 2003a, 2003b; Minshew, et al., 1994; Nation, Clarke, Wright, & Williams, 2006; Wahlberg & Magliano, 2004). • Important that reading instruction emphasize both decoding and comprehension (Whalon, Otaiba, & Delano, 2009).

20. Evidence: Reading Comprehension • Children with ASD: • 8 year old with HFA improved reading comprehension in third grade cooperative learning groups in which students reviewed reading vocabulary, responded to wh- comprehension questions, and engaged in comprehension games (Kamps, Leonard, Potucek, & Garrison-Harrell, 1995). • 20 high functioning children with ASDs improved reading comprehension significantly through the use of anaphoric cuing, but not through prereading questions or cloze techniques (O’Connor & Klein, 2004). • 3 high-functioning children with ASDs improved their ability to ask and answer questions relative to reading assignments through reciprocal questioning in cooperative pairs (Whalon & Hanline, 2008).

21. Evidence:Reading Comprehension • Students with ASD: • Peer tutoring of 2 children with HFA by fifth graders proved effective in improving accuracy of response to comprehension questions (Kamps, Locke, Delquadri, & Hall, 1989). • Peer tutoring of 3 children with HFA significantly increased number of correct responses to comprehension questions (Kamps, Barbetta, Leonard, & Delquadri, 1994).

22. Instruction: Reading Comprehension • Work to decode and comprehend: • Vocabulary and concepts in grade-level texts. • Including figurative and non-literal forms. • Sentence-level material in grade-level texts. • Paragraph-level material in grade-level texts. • A story or textbook unit in grade-level texts. • Language of worksheets/assignments. • Language of objective test questions. • Language of essay test questions. (Richard & Veale, 2009)

23. Instruction: Reading Comprehension • Use: • Dialogue about text (Baker, 2002; Lanter & Watson, 2008) • Story retelling (Roth & Baden, 2001) • Think alouds (Baker, 2002) • Natural contexts (Koppenhaver & Erickson, 2003; Wolfberg, 1999) • Text monitoring (O’Connor & Klein, 2004)

24. Written Language • A modality of communication. • Dependent upon spoken language. • Dependent upon reading experiences. • Based upon the writer’s linguistic, cognitive, and social abilities. • Effective writers must be able to: • Produce language for an intended audience. • Determine what needs to be said, and formulate it into text that is understandable and interesting to the audience. • Difficult for individuals with ASD due to problems with memory, attention, and organization. • Personal narratives are more difficult than storybook narratives (Losh & Capps, 2003).

25. Instruction: Written Language • Complete sentences by writing single words. • Compose sentences to answer questions or describe objects or events. • Compose a paragraph in response to a question. • Identify the structures of a personal narrative. • Compose a personal narrative. • Compose an expository paper on an assigned topic. • Write a fictional narrative. (Richard & Veale, 2009)

26. Summary: Suggestions for Teaching Literacy • Teach literacy in natural contexts. • Promote phonological and phonemic awareness. • Label objects and pictures to promote sight word recognition. • Engage in shared book reading. • Encourage story retelling. • Talk about text you are reading. • Read and write about language experiences. • Use visual aids and/or computer software. (Lanter & Watson, 2008)

27. Summary: Suggestions for Teaching Literacy • Match texts with child’s ability. • Focus on deep rather than surface level questions. • Build background knowledge. • Link texts with prior knowledge. • Promote text monitoring. (Lanter & Watson, 2008)

28. Why Literacy Instruction for Individuals with ASD? • To improve language comprehension. • To increase oral language abilities. • To improve literacy. • To increase functional independence. • To promote leisure skills. • To advance vocational skills.

29. Contact Information Tina K. Veale, Ph.D. Eastern Illinois University 600 Lincoln Avenue 2207 Human Services Center Charleston, IL 61920 (217) 581-7445 tkveale@eiu.edu