This study investigated reading skills in 41 children with autism spectrum disorder. Four components of reading skill were assessed: word recognition, nonword decoding, text reading accuracy and text comprehension. Overall, levels of word and nonword reading and text reading accuracy fell within average range although reading comprehension was impaired. However, there was considerable variability across the sample with performance on most tests ranging from floor to ceiling levels. Some children read accurately but showed very poor comprehension, consistent with a hyperlexia reading profile; some children were poor at reading words and nonwords whereas others were unable to decode nonwords, despite a reasonable level of word reading skill. These findings demonstrate the heterogeneous nature of reading skills in children with ASD.

Children with specific reading-comprehension difficulties can read accurately, but they have poor comprehension. In a randomized controlled trial, we examined the efficacy of three interventions designed to improve such children's reading comprehension: text-comprehension (TC) training, oral-language (OL) training, and TC and OL training combined (COM). Children were assessed preintervention, midintervention, postintervention, and at an 11-month follow-up. All intervention groups made significant improvements in reading comprehension relative to an untreated control group. Although these gains were maintained at follow-up in the TC and COM groups, the OL group made greater gains than the other groups did between the end of the intervention and follow-up. The OL and COM groups also demonstrated significant improvements in expressive vocabulary compared with the control group, and this was a mediator of the improved reading comprehension of the OL and COM groups. We conclude that specific reading-comprehension difficulties reflect (at least partly) underlying oral-language weaknesses that can be effectively ameliorated by suitable teaching.

BackgroundThis study evaluates the effects of a language and literacy intervention for children with Down syndrome.MethodsTeaching assistants (TAs) were trained to deliver a reading and language intervention to children in individual daily 40-min sessions. We used a waiting list control design, in which half the sample received the intervention immediately, whereas the remaining children received the treatment after a 20-week delay. Fifty-seven children with Down syndrome in mainstream primary schools in two UK locations (Yorkshire and Hampshire) were randomly allocated to intervention (40 weeks of intervention) and waiting control (20 weeks of intervention) groups. Assessments were conducted at three time points: pre-intervention, after 20 weeks of intervention, and after 40 weeks of intervention.ResultsAfter 20 weeks of intervention, the intervention group showed significantly greater progress than the waiting control group on measures of single word reading, letter-sound knowledge, phoneme blending and taught expressive vocabulary. Effects did not transfer to other skills (nonword reading, spelling, standardised expressive and receptive vocabulary, expressive information and grammar). After 40 weeks of intervention, the intervention group remained numerically ahead of the control group on most key outcome measures; but these differences were not significant. Children who were younger, attended more intervention sessions, and had better initial receptive language skills made greater progress during the course of the intervention.ConclusionsA TA-delivered intervention produced improvements in the reading and language skills of children with Down syndrome. Gains were largest in skills directly taught with little evidence of generalization to skills not directly taught in the intervention.

Thirty 8-11-year-old children were administered tests of rapid naming (RAN letters and digits) and reading-related skills. Consistent with the hypothesis that RAN predicts reading because it assesses the ability to establish arbitrary mappings between visual symbols and verbal labels, RAN accounted for independent variance in exception word reading when phonological skills were controlled. Response timing analysis of different components of RAN digits and letters revealed that neither average item duration nor average pause duration were unique predictors of reading skill. However, the number of pauses on digit naming predicted unique variance in exception word reading. Moreover, better readers paused more strategically than poorer readers (e.g. more often at the ends of lines). We suggest that rapid automatised naming may in part reflect differences in strategic control that are a result of differences in reading practice and experience.

Summary The aim of the study was to investigate expression of the active and inactive gelatinases (MMP-2 and -9) in colorectal neoplasia and gastric cancer compared with normal mucosa. A total of 53 colorectal cancers and corresponding normal mucosa were studied using gelatin zymography as well as 15 colorectal adenomas and 13 gastric cancers with corresponding normal mucosa. Overexpression of all the gelatinases occurs in both colorectal and gastric cancer, with activation of MMP-2 appearing to be a feature of the malignant phenotype. Overexpression of MMP-9 occurs in colorectal adenomas. The gelatinases are overexpressed in gastrointestinal neoplasia, suggesting that these enzymes may have an important role in tumour invasion and metastasis.