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Thesis Horatio Turner Developing an intervention to improve reading comprehension for children and young people with autism spectrum disorders. Horatio Turner Institute of Education, University College London Doctorate in Professional Educational Child and Adolescent Psychology 1 Abstract Aim: This study investigates the use of an intervention to improve the reading comprehension of adolescents with autism. Recent research suggests that 30% of children and young people with autism demonstrate a 'hyperlexic’ profile whereby they display accurate word reading but struggle to understand the content of what they are reading. Currently very little is known regarding which interventions are effective for this group of students and no research has been conducted on interventions for adolescents with autism and reading comprehension difficulties. Method: 29 pupils with autism, (mean age 13 years, 6 months) and difficulties with reading comprehension took part in the intervention (15 in the intervention condition and 14 in the control condition). The intervention used an adapted version of the Reciprocal Teaching approach developed by Palincsar and Brown (1984). This was delivered in 50-minute sessions, twice a week over a period of 6 weeks by the researcher. The impact of the intervention is evaluated using a standardised measure of reading comprehension. Furthermore, semi-structured interviews were conducted to capture participants’ views of the efficacy and organization of the intervention. Findings: The results indicated that the intervention group demonstrated an increase in their reading comprehension equivalent to three years of progress as measured by the York Assessment of Reading Comprehension (YARC). Statistical analyses indicated that this increase in comprehension was significantly greater in the intervention group than in the control group. Semi-structured interviews with participants indicated that many demonstrated a shift in their approach to reading with a greater focus on comprehension. Participants also identified that the intervention supported their speaking and listening skills. Conclusions: This study makes a valuable contribution to the knowledge base regarding approaches to teaching reading comprehension to students with autism. Implications for Educational Psychologists and other professionals are discussed. 2 I, Horatio Turner, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. Word count: 35,302 3 Table of contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................... 2 Chapter 1. Introduction ................................................................................................ 7 1.1 National and professional context ................................................................................. 7 1.2 Service and research context ......................................................................................... 8 1.3 Personal Interest ........................................................................................................... 9 Chapter 2. Literature review and rationale ................................................................. 10 2.1 ASD: Definition and prevalence ................................................................................... 10 2.2 ASD: Theoretical Models ............................................................................................. 12 2.2.1 Theory of mind ........................................................................................................... 12 2.2.2 Weak central coherence ............................................................................................. 13 2.2.3 Executive functioning ................................................................................................. 14 2.3 Reading Comprehension: theoretical models .............................................................. 15 2.4 Reading comprehension: causes of difficulties ............................................................. 17 2.4.1 Inference making ........................................................................................................ 17 2.4.2 Narrative skills ............................................................................................................ 18 2.4.3 Anaphoric references ................................................................................................. 19 2.4.4 Meta-cognition ........................................................................................................... 20 2.5 Reading comprehension interventions ........................................................................ 21 2.5.1 Systematic reviews of reading comprehension interventions ................................... 21 2.5.2 Interventions to develop inference skills ................................................................... 22 2.5.3 Story structure and visual support of sequencing ...................................................... 24 2.5.4 Anaphoric references ................................................................................................. 25 2.5.5 Collaborative reading approaches .............................................................................. 26 2.5.6 Meta-cognitive strategies ........................................................................................... 28 2.6 Research aims and rationale ........................................................................................ 33 2.6.1 Research questions ..................................................................................................... 34 2.6.2 Hypotheses. ................................................................................................................ 34 Chapter 3. Methods .................................................................................................... 35 3.1 Design ......................................................................................................................... 35 3.2 Ethics .......................................................................................................................... 35 3.2.1 Consent ....................................................................................................................... 35 3.3 Participants ................................................................................................................. 36 3.3.1 Autism diagnosis ......................................................................................................... 36 3.3.2 Recruitment ................................................................................................................ 36 3.3.3 Allocation .................................................................................................................... 43 3.3.4 Participants: characteristics ....................................................................................... 43 3.3.5 Treatment as usual control group. ............................................................................. 44 3.4 Measures .................................................................................................................... 45 3.4.1 Background measures ................................................................................................ 45 3.4.2 Outcome measures .................................................................................................... 48 3.5 Procedure .................................................................................................................... 49 3.5.1 Screening .................................................................................................................... 49 3.5.2 Baseline session .......................................................................................................... 50 3.5.3 Intervention procedure .............................................................................................. 51 3.5.4 Final assessment session ........................................................................................... 54 3.5.5 Inter-rater reliability ................................................................................................... 54 4 Analyses .......................................................................................................................... 54 3.6 .......................................................................................................................................... 54 3.6.1 Quantitative data analysis .......................................................................................... 54 3.6.2 Qualitative data analysis ............................................................................................ 54 Chapter 4. Results ....................................................................................................... 57 4.1 Quantitative results ..................................................................................................... 57 4.1.1 Characteristics of participants at baseline.................................................................. 57 4.1.2 Group comparisons for reading comprehension: ....................................................... 58 4.1.3 Group comparison of remaining outcome variables .................................................. 59 4.1.4 Group comparison for summarisation of text ...........................................................
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