Teaching word reading to autistic children included in a regular school: a methodological proposal

• Grant number: 11/17001-4
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: November 01, 2011
• End date: October 31, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Experimental Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Camila Domeniconi
• Grantee: Camila Domeniconi
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Reading and writing can be considered as the basis of all academic repertoire. Despite of this importance, actually there are children in school that presented difficulties during learning of reading or writing, especially children with autism, included in regular school. This project aims to implement and evaluate a program for teaching reading to children with autism who attend a regular school. The program is based on computerized teaching of isolated words, applied by a specialized teacher or the book reading, applied by a parent. The procedure is based on alternating treatments design, to evaluate the following experimental conditions: 1) only the computerized teaching of isolated words, applied by specialized teacher (Condition A); 2) only the reading of book, applied by a parent (Condition B); and 3) both interventions simultaneously (Condition AB). The participants will be six learners with autism, their teachers and their parents. The learners will receive training in three alternated conditions, during four units of reading teaching. The performances of learners will be evaluate with use of pre test, pos test between each teaching unit and follow up, after finish all the teaching units. Data analysis will be based on comparisons of performance of each learner during each experimental condition. It will be expected that the results can be useful in preparation of programs of teaching reading to children with autism, with participation of formal and informal educational agents. (AU)