This research project explored the shared-reading habits of parents of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and compared those results to the shared-reading habits of parents of typically developing children. The goal was to gain a stronger insight on early literacy skills of children with ASD and assess whether the shared-reading habits of parents of children with ASD differ from parents of typically developing children. Seven families with children with ASD ages 4-7 were recruited to complete a survey via Qualtrics. The results were then analyzed descriptively and compared to established data on home literacy engagement. Mann-Whitney U Tests compared variables across unequal group sizes.
The results show that groups did not significantly differ on any variables (p<.05). A possible explanation for the lack of significant difference in the reading habits between groups may be due to the longevity of instruction to achieve mastery in the skill. Groups approached significant differences (p=.087) for the item “I believe that teaching early literacy skills can increase my child’s quality of life.” Parents of children with autism were less likely to think that teaching early literacy skills can increase my child’s quality of life compared to parents of typically developing children. A possible explanation for the change may be due to the perception of lifestyle for children with ASD. Parents of children with ASD face challenges that parents of typically developing children do not face. Parents of children with ASD may be more focused on those challenges as opposed to focusing on literacy development.
A proposed future study would film parents and children reading a children’s book together. The video-recording would be used to analyze for a variety of interactive literacy behaviors and the data would be compared to previous studies analyzing parent-child reading behaviors in children without ASD.
Author: Alexandra Insoft
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Arnold Olszewski, Speech Pathology and Audiology
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