Preschool predictors of reading ability in the first year of schooling in children with ASD

Abstract

A high percentage of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) show elevated challenges in learning to read. We investigated longitudinal predictors of reading skills in 41 children diagnosed with ASD. All children completed measures of precursor literacy skills at the age of 4-5 years, including phonological awareness, letter sound knowledge, rapid automatic naming, name writing, and phonological memory (digit span), along with measures of word- and passage-level reading skills in their first year of formal schooling. Nonverbal cognition and letter sound knowledge accounted for 53.4% of the variance in regular single word reading at school age, with letter sound knowledge a significant individual predictor. Overall, 18 children showed reading ability scores in the average range on a standardized test of passage-level reading ability, whereas 23 children performed below expectations. These groups differed significantly on all precursor literacy measures (at ages 4-5), except autism symptoms based on parent report. Group membership was significantly predicted by preschool receptive vocabulary, name writing, and rapid automatic naming, with high sensitivity and specificity. These results are discussed in reference to the literature describing early literacy predictors for typically developing children, highlighting key areas for future intervention and support. Autism Res 2018, 11: 1332-1344. © 2018 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: Children with autism are at increased risk of persistent reading difficulties. We examined whether preschool reading-related skills linked to later reading ability. Performance on the following three tasks administered at preschool predicted children who showed early reading success versus below expectations in their first year of school: vocabulary, name writing, and rapid naming of familiar objects and shapes. These results can inform future interventions.

Looking or talking: Visual attention and verbal engagement during shared book reading of preschool children on the autism spectrum

“…Fleury & Schwartz, 2017; Mucchetti, 2013; Tipton et al, 2017). Furthermore, receptive vocabulary and alphabet knowledge were chosen as measures of emergent literacy given that these are important predictors of later reading ability for TD children (National Early Literacy Panel (NELP), 2008) and children on the spectrum (Westerveld et al, 2018) and are linked to visual attention during SBR for TD children (e.g. Evans, Saint-Aubin, 2013).…”

“…Evans, Saint-Aubin, 2013). Alphabet knowledge includes skills such as letter-name and letter-sound knowledge that are highly correlated ( r = 0.76; Westerveld et al, 2017) and are predictive of later reading ability in children on the spectrum (letter-sound knowledge; Westerveld et al, 2018) and TD children (letter-name knowledge; NELP, 2008).…”

“…Moreover, future research that extends upon current longitudinal work (e.g. Westerveld et al, 2018) is suggested to investigate the potential developmental links between different aspects of children's visual attention and verbal engagement and their precursor literacy skills in this literacy learning context. Second, consistent with previous research (e.g.…”

Development of an Online Training Program for Public Library Staff to Deliver Autism Friendly Story Time Sessions

“…letters and sounds (e.g. pointing these out during shared book reading), based on recent findings that showed a proportion of children on the spectrum have difficulty learning those early print-related skills and the importance of those skills for learning to read (Westerveld, Paynter, O'Leary, & Trembath, 2018;Westerveld et al, 2017). Consistent with the parentcoaching program, we likewise elected to include a program across multiple weeks to give children an opportunity to adapt to the potentially new situation/routine of attending Story Times.…”

Early Literacy Learning Experiences across Home and Community Libraries for Young Children Who Have Autism

“…Literacy learning in particular has been highlighted as an area of need and interest (e.g., Dynia et al 2014;McIntyre et al 2017;Westerveld et al 2017b;Whalon 2018), with up to 65% of school-aged children who have autism displaying challenges in literacy development, including decoding and comprehension (Arciuli et al 2013;Jones et al 2009;Nation et al 2006;Ricketts 2011;Westerveld et al 2018). Literacy challenges in this population are perhaps not surprising given the strong associations between spoken language and literacy (Catts and Kamhi 2014) and the frequency of language impairments in this population (for a meta-analysis of receptive and expressive language see Kwok et al 2015).…”