Effectiveness and Relevance of a Reading Intervention as a Function of Students' Characteristics for High-Functioning Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Background: Learning to read is a challenge for many high-functioning students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), especially when it comes to understanding the meaning of texts (e.g., Whitehouse & Harris, 1984). Indeed, their reading comprehension appears to be below their reading fluency levels on standardized testing (Nation, Clarke, Wright & Williams, 2006).  Regrettably, evidence-based reading interventions for students with ASD are almost completely inexistent (see Chiang & Lin, 2007 for a review), and reading comprehension problems continue to impede on these students’ school success and social and professional integration.

Objectives: The objective of this study is to examine the effectiveness of a reading intervention and to determine whether this intervention is effective for a wide range of students with ASD.

Methods: Forty-three students diagnosed with ASD were randomly assigned to a control condition (N = 20; regular classroom activities) or to an intervention condition (N = 23; reading intervention: three 30 minute sessions per week for four months). The intervention was offered in small groups (three or four students) by a research assistant. Reading vocabulary, paragraph main idea identification and text structure were targeted. The instruction was explicit, structured and interactive. Fidelity of implementation was monitored through direct observations. Students were assessed on researcher-developed measures of instructed vocabulary, general comprehension (recall) and main idea identification. Reading assessments were conducted individually. Interrater reliability was performed for at least 25% of the assessments.

Results: Mean comparisons of control and intervention students indicate that the intervention is highly effective, with effect sizes (d) varying between 0.60 (general reading comprehension) and 0.80 (instructed vocabulary). Among students’ pretest characteristics (mastery of basic reading skills, performance IQ, receptive vocabulary, oppositional behavior), only oppositional behavior appears predictive of the degree to which students benefited from the intervention, with students rated as oppositional by their teachers benefiting less.

Conclusions: Interestingly, the results of this study seem to indicate that it is possible to significantly improve the reading comprehension of a wide range of students with ASD, including those with limited basic reading skills or oral vocabulary or relatively low IQ. These results have implications for the development of future reading interventions.