Early Reading Outcomes in Response to a Comprehensive Reading Curriculum for Students With Autism Spectrum Disorder and Intellectual Disability

This study examined the response of two students in the Southwestern United States with autism spectrum disorder and IQ in the intellectual disability range to a comprehensive, text-based reading intervention. The intervention, Friends on the Block, includes multiple strands of literacy providing explicit instruction in phonics, phonemic awareness, high-frequency irregular or temporarily irregular words, decoding, vocabulary, oral language, and comprehension. Multiple supports for students with intensive needs are embedded within the intervention, such as specially designed multi-criteria books, extensive scaffolding, and intensive cumulative review. Teachers customize the program to address the varying needs of students. We used single-case multiple baselines across levels of instruction design to assess growth on a measure of reading (words read correctly). Results indicated a positive, functional relation between reading intervention and word reading. Both students also demonstrated modest growth on measures of phonemic awareness, letter-sound knowledge, and word identification from pre- to post-intervention.