Strategies for Increasing Reading Comprehension Skills in Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Review of the Literature
Education and Treatment of Children
Finnegan, E., & Mazin, A. L. (2016).
Education and Treatment of Children, 39(2), 187-219.
This systematic review investigates the effectiveness of reading comprehension interventions in students on the autism spectrum.
Not stated
January 1985 to April 2015
Group experimental design studies; quasi-experimental design studies; single-subject design studies
15
Results indicated the following interventions to be highly effective:
<ul>
<li>direct instruction;</li>
<li>cooperative learning (e.g., peer tutoring, cooperative learning pairs); and </li>
<li>graphic organizers.</li>
</ul>
Results indicated graphic organizers to be the most effective intervention. Interventions targeting figurative language comprehension demonstrated moderate to high effects.
Findings indicated insufficient evidence to suggest that supported electronic text – a form of computer-assisted instruction – could effectively improve reading comprehension in students with autism spectrum disorder. "The results of these studies suggest other features of the interventions such as repeated reading … or explicit instruction … might be the critical intervention component in improving the reading comprehension scores for some participants" (p. 205).
Limited studies demonstrated promising results for self-directed strategies (e.g., question-answer relationships, anaphoric cuing) to improve reading comprehension in students with autism spectrum disorder.
