Vocabulary Development for Readers with Autism

Reading expands the breadth of a reader’s vocabulary, which in turn contributes to reading efficiency.  In other words, the more you read the better reader you will become because a richer vocabulary gives more meaning to what is read. The opposite is also true, the less you read the poorer will be your vocabulary and the harder it will be for you to bring meaning to text. Normally, good readers learn most of their new words by using the context and their own experience of the world to add meaning. Often this meaning will initially be a gross approximation to the actual meaning of the word. However, after many encounters with the same word in a variety of contexts the reader will refine the depth of meaning and also see how meaning can change from one context to another.

Many children who have mastered decoding may have difficulty with reading comprehension, particularly after year four. This is because the language structures are much more complex, much of the vocabulary is unfamiliar, the types of texts differ from the more familiar narrative structures that they have been accustomed to in the lower grades, and the emphasis or focus shifts from decoding to comprehension. Often children with language deficits will struggle and appear to fall behind at this point. Reading becomes harder and they tend to avoid reading, which then contributes to poorer vocabulary through lack of exposure to new and unfamiliar words. This becomes a self-defeating cycle of poor reading comprehension and reading disengagement.

In addition, many children with high functioning autism have good to very good decoding skills and have a reasonable amount of reading practice. However, they have more difficulty connecting meaning to new words. They tend to concentrate on the detail and not so much on connected text such as; phrases, sentences, paragraphs and longer discourse. They often have language deficits that hinder this process and have difficulty making appropriate inferences. This may include their inability to develop text coherence, understand emotion and other character traits in narrative texts and have difficulties with executive functioning in working memory. These problems make it difficult for them to connect with prior knowledge, use the sentence and story context, and make appropriate inferences about the meanings of unknown words. Thus, they may read more but their vocabulary suffers as they progress through the grades. Usually these children are very intelligent and are able to cover their comprehension deficit but there will come a time when the texts that they are assigned become too difficult to adequately comprehend. What also makes detection difficult is the fact that they may appear to be reading fluently with expression but without adequate comprehension.

To help these students there are some very practical ideas that have been suggested by Susan Gately (2008 see article for more details). I have listed many of these ideas below but have structured the methods in terms of my COR Literacy Framework (See earlier Blog) (also see my earlier Blog series on Fluency).

Perceptual Level:

•     Visually cued instruction – helps focus on relevant parts of information
•     Graphics
•     Colour
•    Provide concrete and tangible information
•    Focus in relevant parts of the story or information

Cognitive Level:

•    Priming background knowledge
•    Picture walks
•  Visual maps
•    Understanding narrative text structure
•     Emotional thermometers

Metacognitive Level

•    Think-alouds
•      Reciprocal thinking (also refer to reciprocal teaching - Google)
•     Goal-structure-mapping
•     Decrease reliance on other prompts and increase independence

Details about these ideas can be found in:

Gately, S. E. (2008). Facilitating reading comprehension for students on the Autism Spectrum. Teaching Exceptional Children, 40(3), 40-45.

For a more detailed explanation of vocabulary difficulties see pages 83-84 in:

Woolley, G. (2007). A comprehension intervention for children with reading comprehension difficulties. Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties, 12(1), 43-50.

A very informative article and book chapter related to problems with vocabulary for children with ASD:

Lopez, B., & Leekham, S. R. (2003). Do children with autism fail to process information in context? Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 44(2), 285-300.

Leekam, S. (2007). Language comprehension difficulties in Children with autism spectrum disorders. In C. Cain and J. Oakhill (Eds.), Children’s Comprehension Problems in Oral and Written Language: A Cognitive Perspective (pp. 104127), NY : Guilford Press.

Visualization and Comprehension Pt 9

Oral  vocabulary is one of the most important contributors to children's reading, academic development, and progress through school. It is a significant indicator of success at school. However, it has been estimated that the size off children's receptive flexibility can vary quite considerably. Children with poorer vocabularies may have as many as 4000 fewer words in their mental lexicon than children starting school from homes where parents regularly interact with their children and provide rich language experiences. As a result, children entering school with larger vocabularies tend to have less problems with reading, read more, and learn more new vocabulary through their extensive reading experiences. In contrast, children who have poorer vocabularies tend to have more difficulty learning to read, read less, and fall behind their more successful classmates in acquiring new words.

Produced using 'Wordle'

At school good readers learn a vast amount of new vocabulary incidentally as they read. They are able to use the context to help them decipher new meanings for new words and add them to their mental lexicons as they read. However, many children struggle with reading and this word learning process becomes quite difficult for them. In response to this, it is necessary for some direct teaching of  vocabulary in the classroom.

I have been working on an article for a professional journal about teaching vocabulary in the classroom.     While doing this I came across an article  by Mark Sadoski called "A dual coding view of vocabulary learning" (see below). This was very timely as it gave some insights on how 'Dual Coding' theory can contribute to the teaching of vocabulary (as well as fitting neatly into this blog series).

According to Sadoski, words are verbal labels for concepts, their meanings and even pronunciations  are determined by their connections to a variety of other words. However some words are easier to learn than others. For example, words like 'sofa', are more concrete and are generally easier to imagine than words that those that are more abstract,  such as the word 'justice'. This notion supports dual coding theory because it demonstrates that people use different coding systems to encode the words. Concrete words tend to be associated with imagery while abstract words depend primarily on the web of verbal associations for their meaning.

One particularly effective direct teaching method for learning new vocabulary is called the keyword method. This requires learners to form an interactive mental image of the definition of the new word together with a familiar concrete word that shares a similar acoustic element. In the article Sadoski uses the example of the word 'potable', which means suitable for drinking. 'Pot' is the keyword that forms part of a word potable and can be visualised as the pot containing water.  Thus, visual and  acoustic  word associations are linked to word symbols, meanings and context. Word roots, suffixes and prefixes can also used in conjunction with the key word method to enhance this learning experience.

Sadoski, M. (2005). A dual coding view of vocabulary learning. Reading and Writing Quarterly, 21, 221-238.

Visualizing and Reading Comprehension Pt1

This is the first part in a 12 part series on using a visualising strategies to develop reading comprehension. 

When readers read and comprehend written text and they develop what is sometimes referred to as a situation model. A situation model uses information that the reader brings to the task of reading and combines this with the new text-based information to build comprehension. Thus, readers construct an interpretation (or situation model) of what they are reading by combining information from their background knowledge together with information extracted from the print. The new information that is processed in working memory may be visual, verbal, or a combination of both. The two modes if information are in a reciprocal relationship, for example, if one thinks of a word one can form a picture of that word and if one imagines a picture a number of associated words will be evoked. This means that when the two modes are linked more items can be chunked together and stored in working memory.

It is the linking of words with pictures that will enable a more efficient use of working memory resulting in better reading comprehension. The two modes complement one another but function quite differently, for example, the verbal system is linear and sequential. To remember a number of words or numbers a person needs to repeatedly rehearse them in the order in which they were encoded so that the impressions are maintained in working memory. In contrast, visual memory temporarily stores all their items in the form of a holistic image in which the items are placed in a spatial relationship to one another. Within this image individual items can be accessed by zooming in or out or in different directions. When the representations are connected comprehension will be enhanced because information can be more easily accessed and retrieved.

If one is able to describe an object in detail the better will be the associated mental image because it holds more information and has more links to verbal information. One way to develop the descriptive words is to place an unseen object in a bag and have the learner described the object so that the listener can guess what the object is. Children often have a great deal of difficulty finding the best words to use to describe the unseen object. Most children need to be shown how to describe an object. For example, by using words that are related by; size such as large or huge, or by texture such as rough or smooth.

Another fun way to develop language is to use the game, " Guess Who'.  In this game the learner  has two think of words to fit into, "Does  your person have...? This is a simple type of language game and a good way to introduce some basic vocabulary.

In the next blog I will be discussing the development of language skills using other types of barrier games.

10 Principles for assisting reading 3c.Word awareness

The bulk of recent research indicates that there is a vast difference in the amount of vocabulary knowledge that children bring to school. Those that have a wide vocabulary tend to advance quickly in reading while those with limited vocabularies are at a distinct disadvantage. This situation is compounded by the fact that children who do well in reading learn more new vocabulary than the delayed readers with poor vocabularies. In other words, the children rich in vocabulary get even richer while the poor readers grow poorer in comparison because they have less willingness to read and a lack of opportunity to lean more words. This is often referred to as the "Matthew effect".

What is needed in guided reading sessions is the development of word awareness and the modelling of new word learning during reading. There are two aspects of word learning: depth and breadth of word learning. The depth refers to the encoding and the connections to what is already known about words in the mind of the reader. It is the linking of the new to the known. Does it look like other words? Does it sound like other words? "Do you know other words that sound the same?' "what do you think it means?" These observations questions can come before the reader begins to read. Obviously, if the reader is familiar with the words then the reading will be much easier to negotiate.

The reading guide could model the learning of new words during the initial reading to the child by stopping at what would seem to be an unfamiliar word (most parents and interested others are usually able to predict what words will be unfamiliar - if unsure - just ask the child). Say, "I wonder what this word means?" Read back in the text (or read forward) and also look at the picture and mention what clues are available to help work out the meaning.
Now say, "I think it means ..."
Then say, "Yes, that makes sense because..."
This develops the breadth of word learning because it shows that words are connected to other words and it also develops child's predictive ability.

One of the exciting things about the guided reading session is - "What new words did I discover today?"