Interest-Based Text Reading Intervention to Support Improvements with Reading Comprehension for Students with ASD

Background: The p urpose of this presentation is to report the findings from an alternating treatments single-subject study designed to explore the feasibility of two separate but related single-component reading comprehension interventions for students with Autism spectrum disorders (ASD): question development and anaphoric cueing. The use of question development and anaphoric cueing were conceptualized through Theory of Mind (ToM). The ToM hypothesis of ASD states that attenuated ToM underlies the social and communication impairments that characterize ASD (e.g. Baron-Cohen 1989; Frith 1989; Leslie 1987). These difficulties may lead to very literal understanding of the text.  

Methods: Researchers provided ten, 30-minute sessions of one-one reading instruction to four students with ASD in grades 3 – 5. Two students participated in each of the treatments. Researchers compared a typical practice approach to single-component interventions from previous studies to an enhanced practice version designed to improve the performance of students with ASD for the following two interventions: anaphoric cueing, and question development. The enhanced practice versions utilized visual supports and principles of applied behavior analysis (ABA). Preliminary data indicated that students consistently performed better with the enhanced practiced version of the intervention than with the typical practice approach. Curricular and instructional enhancements to anaphoric cueing, and question development may serve as a starting point to develop reading interventions that are capable of increasing the number of students with ASD who demonstrate growth in reading comprehension.

Results: Preliminary data indicated that students consistently performed better with the enhanced practiced version of the intervention than with the typical practice approach. Curricular and instructional enhancements to anaphoric cueing, and question development may serve as a starting point to develop reading interventions that are capable of increasing the number of students with ASD who demonstrate growth in reading comprehension.

Conclusions and Implications: This presentation will be useful to practitioners by providing a clear explanation instruction on the use of two evidence-based reading interventions (question development and anaphoric cueing), and detailed procedures on how to enhance these interventions with principles of ABA and visual supports.  Participants will gain the following knowledge: (1) Learn instructional practices that research documents are associated with improved outcomes for students with ASD: question development and anaphoric cueing. (2) Apply enhanced practices of ABA and visual supports to improve reading performance of students with ASD.