high functioning autism and reading difficulties

High Functioning Autism and Reading Difficulties: What’s the Connection?

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Autism is a developmental disability that affects a growing number of children not only in the United States but also worldwide. The symptoms often manifest in childhood and make it extremely hard for children to focus, comprehend, and communicate.

That’s why it should come as no surprise that high functioning autism and reading difficulties are connected. It is also the reason why Dreamweaver House developed Brain Retrain, a program focused on addressing ASD and other behavioral issues.

A child on the spectrum may be able to read one paragraph but not comprehend passages as easily as others. If you think your kid has this problem, allow us to help you better understand the relationship between the two, what can be done, and more.

What Is Autism Spectrum Disorder?

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a developmental disability that causes social, behavioral, and social challenges. Children with ASD usually struggle with cognitive skills, such as problem-solving and comprehension.

The condition produces three cognitive deficits that prevent children with ASD from learning like other children of similar age. Since reading is a covert activity, which means the process of understanding texts occurs inside the mind, it will be hard for autistic persons to observe what is happening.

ASD also has three different levels that can influence a child’s reading comprehension. Apparently, as the level goes higher, the worse the symptoms manifested are.

Three Cognitive Deficits of ASD

The three cognitive deficits of ASD are the theory of mind, weak central coherence, and executive functioning. Let’s take a closer look at what each of these concepts is responsible for to understand them better.

Theory of Mind

Theory of Mind (ToM) describes a person’s ability to understand another’s point of view or perspective. For example, a first-grader should understand a character’s feelings via text by relating to their own feelings.

A child with high-functioning autism will struggle with reading social situations and may not relate to the character. Instead, they will struggle to understand that the character has their own feelings because they can’t think from another’s perspective.

Central Coherence

Central coherence refers to bringing together a concept or idea from phrases or text. For instance, a first-grader should identify significant themes from nonfiction and fiction texts. Children with ASD may have weak central coherence and miss the main concept or context.

Executive Functioning

Executive functioning (EF) is a process of organizing, monitoring, and planning when reading text. A first-grader should describe details of a story via settings, characters, and more. 

In comparison, children with autism may not be able to place the story into the correct sequence of events. They will also have difficulty connecting with the text, creating mental images, and summarizing.

list of high functioning autism and reading difficulties

Three Levels of ASD

Below is an overview of the three different levels of ASD to help you differentiate each one better. This way, you’ll have a good background of high-functioning autism, which we’ll discuss later.

ASD Level 1

Level 1 is the mildest form of autism and is known as high-functioning autism. Children diagnosed with Level 1 Autism have difficulty communicating appropriately with others, moving from one activity to another, or trying new things. They may also experience problems with organizing and planning.

ASD Level 2

Level 2 is the middle form of autism and requires substantial support and care. Children with Level 2 Autism will struggle with verbal and social communication. They may also find it harder to focus or change activities. Often, they will have narrow interests, repetitive behaviors, and only speak simple sentences.

ASD Level 3

Level 3 is the highest form of autism and requires very substantial support. Children will have problems listed in previous levels and difficulties expressing themselves verbally and nonverbally. They will have limited ability to speak, read, write and may only respond to direct social approaches.

What Is High-Functioning Autism?

As noted, high-functioning autism refers to Level 1 ASD. Keep in mind that the term “high functioning” doesn’t mean the autism level is high. Instead, the child can function highly or close to a regular person.

Children with high functioning autism often can read, write, and comprehend decently. That said, they may still struggle a bit in social interactions and are slow to take social cues. As a result, this highly impacts their ability to interact with peers and to make friends. To put simply, their disability will interfere with their work, school, and relationships, but not much else.

Signs of High-Functioning Autism

Here are some signs of high-functioning autism you need to look out for:

  • Lack of participation in a conversation
  • Trouble expressing or understanding feelings
  • Difficulty reading body language
  • Unable to understand sarcasm or emotive undertones
  • Robotic and monotone speaking
  • Failing to understand phrases

For a complete list, check out Autism Speaks Autism Diagnosis Criteria: DSM-5.

High Functioning Autism and Reading Difficulties

Apart from those mentioned earlier, children with high-functioning ASD may also experience problems with reading comprehension. That’s because the condition makes understanding phrases and text very hard.

There are also other areas where high-functioning autism may impact reading comprehension, and we discussed three of them below.

Not Understanding Metaphors

A metaphor is a figure of speech that describes an object or action that doesn’t make literal sense. Children with autism have difficulty grasping sarcasm and tend to take the meaning of words literally. So, a child with ASD may not understand the importance of a metaphor even if practiced or explained.

Not Understanding Idioms

An idiom is similar to a metaphor but isn’t exactly the same. It focuses on a group of words that establish a meaning that isn’t literal or deductible from the words in the expression.

For example, “barking up the wrong tree” can’t be deduced from the words alone. One has to understand alternative meanings to understand an idiomatic phrase. Therefore, children with ASD, who take things literally, will not be able to comprehend idioms.

Limited Vocabulary

A person with an extensive vocabulary understands the meaning or definition of the words they learned. While children with high-functioning autism may be familiar with a lot of words because they read and heard them, they struggle to grasp meanings or concepts. An autistic child may also struggle to use expressive vocabulary.

samples of high functioning autism and reading difficulties

How To Help a Child With Autism Level 1 Develop Reading Comprehension

As long as a teacher, parent, or caretaker understands the three cognitive deficits explaining the relationship between high functioning autism and reading difficulties, they can use specific techniques to help the child better understand passages.

If your child is already in special education, teachers may use these techniques. That said, we understand that high-functioning autism isn’t always detected, so some children may end up staying in regular classes.

In that case, here are some of the things that can be done in school and at home to help your child develop reading comprehension skills:

Step 1: Build Background Knowledge

The first step is to access and build a child’s background knowledge. You can do this by presenting the child with information related to the text.

Tell the child to look at the text and then ask him what it’s about. Next, pre-teach any vocabulary and terms that a child may need to understand the text by drawing a line from the picture to a word or pointing.

Step 2: Create Mental Images

The next step is to help create a mental image from the text. Use stories with pictures and allow the child to view the images before reading through them. Ask him to look at the picture and tell you what they see. Then, ask him to describe what the picture looks like.

Step 3: Make Connections

Now that the child has a brief idea of the story, start making connections using a graphic organizer. A graphic organizer is a visual representation of the story with events, sequence, and characters.

Fill out a graphic organizer with the child and see if they can make connections. A child with high-functioning autism should get a better idea of what the story is about and will be more likely to remember if they take notes on the story.

Step 4: Make the Discussion Engaging

Read the text and engage in consistent discussions about it. Use reciprocal questioning modeling to allow the child to generate and answer questions about the text. For example, ask him to read about the problem and acknowledge why it’s an excellent question to ask. Make the child draw connections with what they just read.

Step 5: Summarize

Lastly, go over the concepts and summarize the child’s understanding of the story. Use story recall teaching and have the child create casual connections with what they read. Ask them the main idea of the story and summarize what it was about.

Other Known Successful Strategies

ASD encompasses a wide variation of symptom types and severity where each individual can exhibit different symptoms. Sometimes, one learning technique may not be enough to impact a child’s reading comprehension. In that case, some other effective methods can be tried or implemented, such as the following:

Guided Reading

Guided reading is a technique where a teacher or another person reads with a small group of children who have similar reading comprehension levels. By doing so, children will not feel left behind or get lost while reading passages.

This way, the peer group will stay at a similar place. The group can move at a much slower pace to make sure all members understand each concept. 

Self-Regulating

Another strategy that has proven effective in teaching children with ASD is self-regulating behavior. One that is particularly useful is anaphoric cueing and reminder cues.

Anaphoric cueing is where a teacher directs attention away from troublesome parts of the text and simplifies and breaks sentences down one by one. Doing this helps children identify what specific words refer to and their relations.

Direct Instruction

Get children involved with programs that provide direct instruction (DI). As the name suggests, this technique is where teachers help students directly rather than focusing on a class. With DI, the teacher can focus on altering the teaching method to help ASD children pay attention. Aside from that, it allows them to go at a pace the student is comfortable in.

Visual Frameworks

ASD children are visual learners, making it hard for them to learn from textbooks or passages. Incorporating visual aspects of learning into the curriculum can help them contextualize what they are reading. Using visual pictures, videos, or even acting can help increase their understanding of the passages.

Peer Tutoring

Peer tutoring has also been proven to be successful to improve reading skills. The Class Wide Peer Tutoring (CWPT) strategy allows all students to help each other through peer-to-peer learning. It will help improve their reading and social skills and access immediate error corrections from peers.

Brain Retrain

Brain Retrain is a program that utilizes audio frequencies to stimulate areas of the brain responsible for influencing learning and behavior habits. It is a non-invasive method to help a child improve their reading difficulties, and it’s effective.

Successfully Helping an Autistic Child With Reading Difficulties

Many high-functioning autistic children have above-average intelligence but struggle with reading comprehension and social skills. Fortunately, early intervention and correct teaching methods can help them overcome their reading difficulties and improve comprehension.

Children with autism will need to learn how to decode what they read, connect previous readings or life experiences, and think deeply about what they have read. This is mainly done through practice outside of the classroom, as the child needs more time to process the text.Thus, on top of professional intervention, active reading in school and at home should be implemented. It’s when a child processes what they are reading by making connections and relating to the text. Tried-and-tested programs, such as Brain Retrain, also play a crucial role in helping children with ASD overcome their struggles.

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