Part 2-High Functioning Autism and Reading Comprehension-Why is it so Hard?

-In my previous post I tried to help parents and teachers of Autistic readers understand WHY reading comprehension is so HARD. Just to recap, here are three important cognitive areas that are often not working for your Autistic child:

1. Theory of Mind-the ability to understand other's point of view or perspective.

2. Central Coherence-ability to bring details together into a whole concept or idea.

3. Executive Functioning-the process of organizing, planning, and monitoring progress when presented with a situation.

So, this is Part 2. Now that you have an idea of WHY reading comprehension is such a challenge, I want to share some ways parents and teachers can help. The information for these tips comes from this excellent article! 

STEP 1: Build up background knowledge of the subject in the reading. What does this even mean? Look at pictures together of things that relate the story. Talk about the pictures. Ask your child what they know. See if they have an understanding of what the picture is really showing.

STEP 2: Create mental images of what they are reading. Usually when you read about a delicious meal, you can "see" it in your head. This picture helps you understand what you've read. Your Autistic child struggles with this, so help him make those images. How? Looking at pictures in the book and talking about them. Use lots of description. "Think out loud" as you describe the picture. It's a lot like the Step 1, but this goes beyond naming to describing!

STEP 3: Make Connections. This is so easy to do, so effective, and doesn't require any materials! When your child is reading about the pigeon who wants to drive the bus, make a connection to the bus she rides each day to school. Point out the pigeon on the side of the road as you drive to visit your family. There are so many connections you can make (text to text, text to self, and text to world). Typical readers do this with some ease. Your Autistic reader needs help to make the connections.

STEP 4: Engage in Discussion. Again, no materials are needed! Just you and your time. Both are precious and so worth spending on your child. Just talk about the who, what, why, where, how, I wonder, and so on. 

STEP 5: Summarize their Understanding. Again, this just needs you and your time. Out-loud, help your child put their understanding together! They need us to SHOW them how we take what we know and come to a conclusion.

Still not sure? Here's a video clip of a few activities that touch on several of the steps mentioned above. The video is an ad for a teaching resource, however it's short and is a great demonstration of some of the steps that have been listed in this post. 

You are your child's first teacher.  And you'll probably always be their favorite. Never forget that!

Happy Reading!

High Functioning Autism and Reading Comprehension-Why is it so Hard? Part 1

Autism effects your child in so many ways! Your child is having trouble with tags in his clothes. The noises are like razors to her ears. Their food is a "weird" texture and impossible to eat! This is just some of the sensory stuff! Then there are the social challenges. It is also a problem when we ask them to stop those repetitive behaviors that make them feel safe, secure. So many things are SO difficult for your Autistic child.

I want to focus on people with high functioning Autism (f.k.a. Asperger's). With all the challenges that many Autistic students face, one area that has been mastered for many is READING. YAY...something they are really good at, that doesn't involve other PEOPLE, and can be like a "movie in your head." The problem is that by the time your high-functioning Autistic child reaches 3rd grade you may see that they can read the 6th grade stories, but they struggle with COMPREHENSION of what they have read. They can't make connections to the text. They can't tell you about what they read. They can't apply what they have read outside of the context of the book.

WHY is comprehension so hard? There are three ways that your child's Autism is having a direct impact on the ability to comprehend what they have read. Here's a quick overview of each...

1. Theory of Mind-the ability to understand other's point of view or perspective. Comprehension of reading relies on understand the feelings, perspectives, and emotions of the characters in the story.

2. Central Coherence-ability to bring details together into a whole concept or idea. Your reader may not be able to piece together the details that were read and infer the theme or main idea of the story.

3. Executive Functioning-the process of organizing, planning, and monitoring progress when presented with a situation. There are many processes that are used when retelling what they know from their reading. They have to organize their thoughts, possibly in sequence. They have to access any prior knowledge they have in order to really understand, and so much more. All of this goes on at the same time! A typical person does this intuitively. Your Autistic reader cannot. WOW.

So, what can a parent do? This sounds so immense, right? Look for Part 2 of this post for ways to help your reader and have fun doing it, too! If you just can't wait to read more, check out this article that spells it all out ! :)

You are your child's first teacher.  And you'll probably always be their favorite. Never forget that!

Happy Reading!