Teaching non-verbal children with autistic disorder to read and write: a pilot study

Abstract

Objectives: To assess the feasibility and effectiveness of an innovative curriculum designed to teach communicative receptive and expressive language to non-verbal children with autism through reading and writing.

Methods: Randomized, controlled clinical trial of 18 children aged 5–13 years with autistic disorder and functional spoken language limited to single words, holophrases, or over-learned phrases. The treatment group (n = 9; mean age: 7·1 years; three female) received 9–11 months of one-to-one instruction in reading and writing. The control group (n = 9; mean age: 8·6 years; two female) received teaching that matched the literacy curriculum in all features of administration and organization, but taught number recognition, addition, and subtraction. Before and after the intervention, participants were given criterion-referenced tests to assess their skills in the knowledge domains taught in the treatment and control interventions.

Results: Five literacy participants and four control participants completed the study. Both groups showed greater improvement on the skills in which they had been trained, compared to the other group: Hotelling’s Trace = 0·66, F(1,7) = 4·63, P = 0·034 (one-tailed),  = 0·40. On the literacy criterion-referenced test, the literacy group showed significant improvement: paired t(4) = 2·40, P = 0·037 (one-tailed); the control group did not (P>0·10).

Discussion: Literacy instruction may be a route to language acquisition for some children with autism who have little or no functional spoken language.

Keywords:

• autism
• language
• literacy
• non-verbal
• randomized controlled trial

Acknowledgements

This study received financial support from Autism Speaks, the Language Learning Small Grants Program, the Suzanne Crosby Murphy Endowment at Columbia University, Arlene and Mitchel Maidman, and Burt and Lynne Manning.