Autism Soccer: Reading Comprehension in Autistic Children

Autistic or not, there are certain basics about reading comprehension that children need to understand frst.

It’s widely known that autistic children can develop some skills further than other people. Their improved word recognition is one of the reasons why they can learn so quickly, but they also have problems when reading. What does it mean having an impaired reading comprehension?

When reading, your mind usually associates words with images and then turns them into a general idea of what the text or article is trying to say. When there’s an impairment in reading comprehension, you can’t turn those ideas in a context that makes sense, which leads to confusion and misinterpretations of what you’re reading. This worsens if there happens to be an unfamiliar word in the text, making it harder to translate what’s being read into a structured idea.

Another factor that complicates reading for autistic children is the language and communicational skills. It is hard for autistics to understand vocabulary they don’t use (due to their difficulties to express) in their daily routines. This difficulty directly affects in their written language decoding.

Early literacy development requires reading comprehension, and it’s a critical part of learning. As a parent or teacher, it’s necessary to instruct yourself into teaching autistic children effectively.

To help you out, we have a set of steps you can use to help autistic children improve their reading:

1.- Build background knowledge

Before getting into reading, it’s important to assist them showing them concepts and information related to what the children are about to be taught. You need to be the most explicit you can be and avoid leaving anything to the imagination.

2.- Develop mental images

Mental imaging improves the skills of autistic children. Before getting to the subject, try to preview a story using pictures as an example. Encourage their participation by asking them what they see, and if they don’t know, make a short and easy explanation of it. Keep in mind that images are highly efficient and will be determinant to develop associative skills.

3.- Create connections

As they read the contents, help them by creating a graphic organizer so they can sort out ideas and connect with the text. Guide them into making connections. For example, you can explain the meaning behind certain metaphors by putting them as an example.

You could use: “The swan is swimming under the sea,” and then create another sentence saying “I am swimming under the sea,” and create a Venn diagram, with each sentence two sentences. In the center of the two circles add “we swim in the water” and “both places are filled with water.” Guide them carefully when joining of both ideas.

4.- Promote discussions after reading

This part of the process is what children require the most to face reading and communication challenges. Engage children in discussing and ask wh- questions such as: “What do you think happened there?" or “Who was that person?” These questions will help them understand what’s the text all about. Use reciprocal questioning (allowing the children to ask) as a way to approach them. It will engage them into speaking their thoughts regarding the text.

5.- Conclusions after reading

Don’t let the discussion be the end of it. Summarize all information around the text to recall what happened and ask questions about the main idea of the story. This part encourages children to think profoundly about what they just read. It’s important you assist them as it could be hard for them.

As you can see, reading comprehension development requires a little more effort for autistic children. With these tools, there’s no doubt your kids will be able to understand and extract valuable information from texts.

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