Chinese reading comprehension of children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder : exploration of strategies with the aid of visual cues

Abstract

Reading comprehension of students with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (HFASD) typically falls below their decoding skills. The present study explored the effectiveness of visual-cued facilitation, in forms of activation of prior knowledge and inducing comprehension monitoring behaviours, and inference bridging facilitation on reading comprehension. Twenty-eight primary students with HFASD and their typically-developing peers completed four comprehension exercises with a practical-writing text and three narrative passages with conditions: answering pre-reading questions with illustrations, within-text picture selection tasks, and control. Results indicated that challenges of students with HFASD in Chinese reading comprehension were similar to previous findings. Their performances were no longer statistically differentiable from their peers with visual-cued facilitations. Implication for practice and future direction were discussed.