Literacy Instruction for Autistic Children Who Speak Languages Other Than English
Autism
Bailey, B., & Arciuli, J. (2022).
Autism, 26(2), 389-405.
This systematic review explores literacy instructions for children on the autism spectrum who speak languages other than English (e.g., Japanese, French, Swedish).
No funding received
From database inception to July 2020
Any study design
19
Findings demonstrated the following regarding literacy interventions for children on the autism spectrum that speak languages other than English:<br />
<ul>
<li>For children learning to use alphabetic orthographies. phonics instruction was associated with improved word reading and spelling.</li>
<li>Overall, word reading and spelling interventions linking the phonology of spoken language at the phoneme, syllable, morpheme, or whole word levels to the symbols of written language were associated with improved reading and spelling skills for alphabetic (e.g., French, Turkish), syllabary (e.g., Japanese Katakana), or logosyllabic (e.g., Chinese characters, Japanese Kanji) writing systems. However, generalization to untrained stimuli was only reported when sub-lexical phonology was the focus of treatment. </li>
<li>Massed practice with and without prompting and differential reinforcement at the whole word level was associated with improved word reading for children learning to use logosyllabic writing systems or alphabetic Turkish orthography. </li>
<li>Reading comprehension interventions were associated with improved outcomes (e.g., vocabulary, main idea identification, reading comprehension) within two studies involving French-speaking children from Canada. </li>
<li>Written expression interventions were associated with improved sentence writing, with one study demonstrating positive outcomes following an intervention targeting generative writing skills.</li>
</ul>
Limitations to this review include small sample sizes, lack of independent confirmation of autism spectrum diagnosis, and differences in study design. Further research is indicated.
