Children on the Autism Spectrum

Children on the autism spectrum vary greatly on their abilities to understand and communicate language during critical language development periods. What is most important for parents and teachers to do is look out for signs that your child is struggling, and work to help them overcome those obstacles!

Signs to look out for:

    • Problems with:
      • Communicating and paying attention in social settings
      • Using and understanding words
      • Using and understanding more complicated sentences
    • Regression of developed skills
    • Late language development milestones
    • Be aware that there can be large differences between children on the Autism Spectrum

Things parents can do to help:

    • Make sure your child has one-on-one attention for improving language skills and learning to read
    • Try to encourage back-and-forth conversations with your child
    • At least every 6 months, evaluate how well your child’s language is improving with these one-on-one sessions

Important terms to know

    • Typical development (TD) of language describes children that pass language learning milestones at a rate similar to most other children
    • Language impairment (LI) refers to a condition where a child fails to develop language skills at a rate similar to most other children
    • Phonological awareness (PA) is the set of skills used for processing speech sound structure
    • Reading comprehension is the ability of the child to understand the context of the material they are being exposed to
    • Decoding skills is the process of making sense of written print words and connects it to the spoken word that it represents
    • Curriculum-Based Measurements (CBMs) are varied assessments of skill administered by teachers over a period of time, such as one school year

• These tools are the product of decades of research, and function as highly reliable and valid assessments of performance

• Measurements provide clear information about a student’s abilities, which allows teachers to easily assess skill development over time

  • The simple interpretation of CBMs, compared to standardized test results, allows each student’s performance to be easily shared with parents, tutors, etc.

• An example of what a second-grade CBM might look like:

  • A student reads aloud from a short, age-appropriate passage while the teacher makes note of the number of errors the student produces
  • This data can be graphically represented and allows teachers to clearly see how a student’s reading fluency progresses over time

• CBMs can be especially helpful for special needs students, or students otherwise at risk for falling behind in reading

– Scores for students facing abnormal reading development can be utilized to determine the most effective intervention methods for each student, as well as to clearly assess reading skills compared to typical levels

Reading to your child could improve social development

  • study finds that children have a more shared affection when reading a book why they have physical contact with it
  • Research suggests that this could help improve the emotional and social interactions that a child demonstrates


A study done by researcher , Rosa Tabernoro demonstrates how picture books can improve the emotional and social development of a child with ASD.

The Study:

  • Includes teachers reading out loud to the student
  • Giving children/students the ability to express themselves through verbal communication

Visual Aids

  • image to the right: creation of a childs work when given freedom to express themselves
  • Results of study: children expressed themselves better when given intructions orally

Takeaway:

  • giving more instructions orally to child helps with development
  • physical connection to object enhances childs learning ability

The importance of phonological awareness (PA) skills in learning to read

Researchers are interested in what cognitive skills are linked to reading ability. In early stages of literacy development (between the ages of 4-5), PA skill performance can be used to predict future reading ability. Phonological awareness is an umbrella term for skills used in processing speech sound structure. Since PA-related tasks can be difficult for children with ASD, it's important to work to improve these skills so that your child doesn't fall behind. Consult with a speech pathologist or your pediatrician to see how to help with language development for your child.

Phonological Awareness (PA) covers the following phonetic skill areas:

  • Word awareness - the ability to distinguish words from other environmental sounds
  • Syllable awareness - the ability to recognize, separate, and assemble syllables that make up words
  • Onset-rime awareness - the ability to detect and produce rhyming words
  • Phoneme awareness - the ability to detect and produce speech sounds that make up words

There are ways to help improve these language skills! If you are concerned that your child has a language impairment that is related or unrelated to an ASD diagnosis, consult with a speech pathologist or your pediatrician.

Which Organizations Provide the Best Support to Autistic Individuals?


Organizations related to Autism may have drastically different missions

For example, some may claim to be searching for a ‘cure’ to Autism, while others focus on supporting people with Autism, providing education, etc.

The Organization for Autism Research (OAR) is highly acclaimed for its responsible use of donor money

Here is their website: https://researchautism.org

The Autism Society of America offers individualized and community-based support across the country

Check them out here: https://autism-society.org

The Asperger/Autism Network provides support not only to Autistic individuals but also to families and professionals

You can find more information here: https://www.aane.org

Autism Speaks has been highly criticized by the Autistic community and others

Here is some more information about the problems with this organization, as well as some other more renowned organizations