I am going to begin with some background information about the child on whom this is based. I chose to focus on the oldest child of the family I babysit for. He is thirteen years old and is a very high functioning child with Asperger's syndrome, which is an Autistic spectrum disorder. He is currently reading on a 5th grade reading level. He is home schooled two days a week and attends a school program for home schooled children the other days. His mother is a special educator who has chosen to teach him at home rather than working in a school setting. His biggest challenges are his tendencies to "compartmentalize" concepts, difficulties understanding social complexities, idioms, and foreshadowing/inferring. Certain aspects of comprehension also give him difficulty. For instance, reading directions that have multiple instructions in one sentence are very confusing, and reading silently to himself is completely ineffective.
The day I came to observe his reading lesson he was reading a short story to himself. His mother told me she wasn't sure if this had anything to do with Asperger's syndrome but he has to read aloud in order to understand what he just read. Being a thirteen year old boy he often protests to doing this and she simply asks him, "Do you want to read it once or twice?" Sometimes he reads twice, once aloud and once quietly. While reading aloud, he reads with great fluency and proper intonation. It is very clear he has seen this modeled and picked up on how to read expressively. While he reads he encounters new/novel vocabulary. Once, he encounters this he and his mother have a conversation about the meaning of the word and he then continues reading.
Another issue with books as the reading level approach fifth grade and beyond is the very frequent use of idioms, or figurative language. His tendency to compartmentalize information makes this a struggle for him. When reading his mother has to overtly make connections for him initially and as he progresses and becomes more familiar with the book he makes his own connections. However, with figurative language often the expressions cannot be literally interpreted and this causes him to struggle to derive meaning from the phrase. Sometimes he interprets it literally. For example, one sentence made a reference to the main character "Hanging up her holsters." His mom stopped him after he read that and asked him what he thought that meant and he said, "Well, she was wearing holsters but then took them off." His mom explained to him it meant she was done, or quitting. Once she explained he brought it up again later and used it correctly. Also, when reading he needs explicit cueing in order to foreshadow or infer meaning from a sentence.
As far as social complexity, with Asperger's things tend to be black and white. Emotions in text can sometimes appear the same way. He can have a hard time understanding you can be happy for your friend who is going to the beach, but also sad because you are going to miss them. When those instances come up in a story or in real-life experiences they need to be discussed to aid the development of understanding social complexity.
He has a worksheet he and his mother work on after he is finished reading. They go back to a worksheet he is given to complete to check for understanding. He works on this independently first. His mother often has to modify the directions to help him understand what he is being asked to do. For instance, if the instructions say read the passage, circle the proper nouns and underline the verbs he will have to have the simplified and broken down for him. His mother will typically have him write 1. Read passage, 2. Circle the proper nouns (and actually circle the word "proper noun"), 3. Underline the verbs (and actually underline the word "verb") as a way to help him grasp all three concepts more clearly.
Overall, his reading skills and the improvements I have seen him make since first meeting him make me feel very positive about his future. As I have mentioned many times, there are so many obstacles individuals with processing difficulties have to overcome. The stages may not be met at a "typical" pace. But they ARE being met at an individually natural pace for him. He is an avid reader. Many times he will pick up a book independently he has read many times and read it because he loves to read and do it well. At his younger siblings' school they have guest readers who dress up in-character and read to the students. He participated in this last year. His mother said while reading he did voices for the different characters and used proper intonation throughout the whole story. He also reads to his three year old sister frequently. All of these are signs that he is learning not only read but to love and appreciate reading.
I feel that Laura Pardo's article
What Every Teacher Needs to Know about Comprehension was a great source for understanding the uniqueness of all reading abilities. With a student with Asperger's it is important to know the reader in order to foster connections that may not be there or may be in a different "compartment." This article touched on many of the areas that can be difficult for students with Asperger's syndrome or any other comprehension barriers.
