1. Tina K. Veale, Ph.D., CCC-SLP Eastern Illinois University

2.  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.  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.  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.  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.  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.  “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: 1. Speech is made up of words. 2. Words are made up of smaller units. 3. Words have onsets. 4. Words have rimes. 5. Words are made up of individual sounds (phonemic awareness) (Goswami, 2001; Liberman, Shankweiler, Fischer, & Carter, 1974; Treiman, 1983; 1985)

8.  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.  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.  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.  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)

14.  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).

15.  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)

18.  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).

19.  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).

20.  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)

23.  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).

24.  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)

25.  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).

26.  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).

27.  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).

28.  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)

29.  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)

31.  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).

32.  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)

33.  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)

34.  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)

35.  To improve language comprehension.  To increase oral language abilities.  To improve literacy.  To increase functional independence.  To promote leisure skills.  To advance vocational skills.

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