Association for Behavior Analysis International

The importance of reading involves, but is not limited to, access to any written information, including social networks, a variety of text-based electronic tools, and text messaging. When teaching reading to children in general, many challenges exist; when teaching reading to children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) the difficulties might increase, since a few of the behavioral characteristics of this population are highly related to difficulties in learning such as language deficits. Curricular adaptations might prove helpful when one faces challenges in teaching reading to children with ASD. In Brazil, these adaptations are rare and one of the factors influencing this might be the lack of national guidelines, manuals or protocols to help the process. In this symposium we will discuss some of the difficulties one might encounter when teaching a child with ASD based on both a brief literature review and clinical cases. We will also discuss a possible solution, based on the protocol Nucleo de Intervencao Comportamental (NIC) is developing taking into consideration Neuropsychology and Behavior Analysis Stimulus Control Brazilian studies about literacy.

Professionals involved in teaching literacy skills for children with autism

The importance of reading involves, but is not limited to, access to any written information, including social networks, a variety of text-based electronic tools, and text messaging. At school, reading with comprehension and being able to communicate with others are necessary for later academic success. When one starts planning for teaching reading, many studies will point to a series of skills that might influence the process: sitting and remaining engaged in school tasks for a while, knowing how to manipulate written materials within your verbal community, printed stimuli being associated with reinforcers, letter (shape) discrimination, sound (more specifically phoneme, and for Portuguese, syllable) discrimination and manipulation, spoken vocabulary, phoneme – grapheme relations, written word – spoken word – referent relations. Some studies discuss that up about 50% of children with ASD have difficulties learn how to read, with many not being able to read at all. The purpose of this paper is to discuss some of the difficulties one might encounter when teaching a child with ASD based on both a brief literature review and clinical cases. Sitting, independent engagement, letter (shape) discrimination, word recognition, fluency and comprehension are among the skills we will address.

In Brazil, it is mandatory for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) to be enrolled in a school, preferably a regular one, excluding homeschooling possibilities. National data show high level of school failure in reading and writing skills for students in general and, although there are no specific data, the same results can be inferred for children with ASD. According to the Brazilian Inclusion Law (2016), students with ASD have the right to an adapted curriculum in both private and public schools. However, as discussed by Ribeiro, Melo and Sella (2017) and Gomes e Mendes (2010), there are very few adaptations for those students (13% and 0% were found in each study, respectively). One of the factors that might contribute to these data is the fact that there are not national guidelines, manuals or protocols that could help with this process. In view of this demand, the Nucleo de Intervenção Comportamental (NIC) is developing a protocol describing a sequence of prerequisites and procedures involved in Brazilian Portuguese literacy for children with ASD. Due to language specificities, international protocols are not amenable to direct translation. The protocol is based on Neuropsychology and Behavior Analysis Stimulus Control Brazilian studies about literacy.