Facilitating Reading Comprehension for Students on the Autism Spectrum

Joshua is a 12-year-old student diagnosed with autism. He is very interested in the Civil War and knows many facts about the battles, uniforms, and weapons used, and he collects Civil War memorabilia. Although he is a voracious reader of this era, he has difficulty comprehending other topics during language arts class. Although he appears to understand story lines, he has difficulty understanding character motivation, perceiving foreshadowing, and appreciating event integration within a story. As a result, he avoids reading fiction and becomes easily frustrated with literature tasks. Jamie is a second-grade student with a diagnosis of pervasive developmental delay (PDD). He has been a precocious decoder since preschool and is a fluent reader. He reads smoothly, often with appropriate prosody in his voice. It would seem that he understands what he is reading, but his fluency masks his lack of reading comprehension. Jamie thinks that reading stops with decoding and becomes visibly distressed when he is required to slow down and discuss what he reads. Michelle is a fifth-grade student diagnosed on the autism spectrum. She attends school in a fifth-grade general education classroom and receives individualized and small group support with a special educator. She has difficulty understanding social situations but enjoys working with her small group. Her word recognition skills are almost at grade level and with assistance and individualized attention, she understands what she reads. However, when left on her own, she has trouble understanding even the lowest level material.