Effects of School-Based Interactive Book Reading on the Vocabulary and Emergent Literacy of Preschoolers with ASD

Background:  

Little is known about effective methods for preparing children with ASD to be competent readers. It is well-established that readers need to develop proficiency in word reading and general language comprehension to read with comprehension (Oakhill, Cain, & Bryant, 2003). Without both of these aspects, comprehension is limited.  How these elements develop in young children with ASD is not well-understood.

This proposal presents preliminary findings from year 1 of a four-year project to examine the emergent literacy of preschoolers with ASD and the effectiveness of two school-based interventions.  The intervention in year 1 was Dialogic Reading (DR), hypothesized to increase expressive and receptive vocabulary. Children build their emergent literacy skills and knowledge through interactions with print and literate behaviors from a young age.  One common experience during this time is shared book reading which provides experiences with oral language, narrative structure, and conventions of print (Anderson et al., 1985).  One method of providing good interactive storybook reading is DR (Whitehurst et al., 1988).  

Objectives:  

One of the project aims is to determine the immediate effects of school-based interventions for preschool children with ASD.  Our Yr. 1 research question is: For which outcomes do children who received DR intervention significantly outperform their non-tutored peers? 

Methods:  

42 children diagnosed with ASD were randomly assigned to DR treatment (n = 21) or BAU control group (n=21).  The inclusion criteria were (a) either a medical diagnosis of autism or an educational identification, (b) an active IEP and receive services for ASD, (c) be enrolled in their last year of preschool, (d) no known co-occurring neurological or genetic disorders, and (e) a minimum standard score of 55 on the OWEPVT. Children were in 24 classrooms across 13 schools.

 Children in the treatment condition had 1:1 interactive book reading sessions using DR methods 3-4 times per week, for 15-20 weeks in the children’s preschool classrooms.  Measures are outlined in the table of results and were pre-tested in November and post-tested in May. 

Results:  

Three-level Hierarchical Models were conducted. There were no group differences on pretests. Significant teacher and school variance was detected; therefore 3-Level models were retained. Raw score gain scores were computed to test treatment impact.  All children made significant gains on all measures regardless of condition.  As well, a significant treatment effect on EOWPVT was found along with a trend for treatment effects on PPVT and WJ Oral Communication.  No other significant or trend differences were found. See the table for all of the results and treatment fidelity information. 

Conclusions:  

Improvements were found for the treatment group on the measures hypothesized to be affected.  This finding is important given the applied nature of the research.  School-based research is critical to learn what types of intervention are effective with this population given the specific ecological context. Due to the small sample size, there may be a lack of power.  Given that the project has additional treatment groups in years 2 and 3, this will be avoided with the full sample.