This study looked at implicit bias toward children with autism and examined whether viewing educational materials about autism would change attitudes toward children with autism. A website developed by Sesame Street containing information about autism and resources for families was distributed to parents of children with autism and parents of children without autism. Results indicated that parents of children with autism showed less implicit bias compared with those of non-autistic children during the pre-test, but the groups did not differ at the post-test. Parents without autistic children and those with more negative explicit attitudes showed a greater reduction in implicit bias from the pre- to the post-test. In addition, for parents of children with autism, a more positive change in explicit attitudes and increased knowledge from the pre- to the post-test was associated with more empowerment at the post-test. The findings suggest that the online educational resources can reduce implicit bias against children with autism and help mitigate some of the psychological issues associated with parenting children with autism.

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) show a unique reading profile characterized by decoding abilities equivalent to verbal abilities, but with lower comprehension skills. The purpose of this study was to assess brain changes associated with an intense reading intervention program in children with ASD using three reading tasks: word, sentence, and multisentence processing, each with differential demands of reading comprehension. Our results provide evidence for differential recruitment of brain regions based on task demands, and support the potential of targeted interventions to alter brain activation in response to positive gains in treatment. Children with ASD have a different reading profile from other reading disorders that needs to be specifically targeted in interventions.

Ten weeks of intensive reading intervention for children with autism spectrum disorder was enough to strengthen the activity of loosely connected areas of their brains that work together to comprehend reading, University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers have found. At the same time, the reading comprehension of those 13 children, whose average age was 10.9 years, also improved.

This study investigated the impact of discourse on engagement in shared storybook reading in children who are language impaired and hard to engage. Although active participation in shared storybook reading in children who are typically developing is well defined, research has shown that the engagement of children with language disorders differ as a result of adult reading styles. To investigate the influence of reading style on children who were hard to engage, four shared storybook-reading sessions were analyzed. Within the highly engaged sessions studied, several discourse features were identified that were supportive of the engagement of children with language impairment who were difficult to engage. These features were a balance of requests and responses between clinician and child, use of various scaffolding measures, and a focus on content through the use of pausing, inflection, and volume. The discourse patterns identified were additional to the strategies associated with dialogic book-reading literature focused on active participation.

This article follows José, a child with autism spectrum disorder, through his communication journey from age 3 to age 11. His journey illustrates many of the characteristics and challenges of individuals with autism spectrum disorders, as they become a part of the literate community in the general education classroom. Collaborative, family-based teaming strategies that supported José's language and literacy learning from kindergarten through fourth grade are described. The article credits early, intensive intervention based on the family's concerns and goals for meaningful outcomes and communicative competence across learning contexts and communicative partners. Speech-language pathologists' roles as advocates for all students to have access to the social and literate community are also highlighted.