Language/cognitive predictors of literacy skills in 12-year-old children on the autism spectrum

Some school age children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) struggle with literacy development, yet, the individual differences are major and not well understood. Moreover, literacy attainment is multi-faceted and literacy skills and difficulties manifest in more than one way. The aim of this study was to describe this variability and to identify language/cognitive predictors of different literacy skills.

We assessed different literacy skills (word reading accuracy, reading fluency, reading comprehension, and spelling), along with a set of language/cognitive predictor skills (listening comprehension, rapid automatized naming, phonological awareness and nonverbal cognitive ability), in 12-year-old children with ASD without intellectual disability recruited from a longitudinal study in Sweden.

There was great heterogeneity (from floor to ceiling levels) in literacy skills, with a statistically increased prevalence of poor reading comprehension and reading fluency compared with population norms. In regression analyses, it was shown that concurrent language/cognitive predictor skills (e.g. phonological awareness) were differentially associated with literacy subskills. Moreover, a longitudinal analysis showed that preschool language problems were associated with poor word reading accuracy and spelling in middle school.

The results confirm previous findings as well as provide new knowledge regarding profiles of literacy (difficulties) in children with ASD; interestingly, the identified predictors of literacy skills in ASD resembled those identified as important in general reading (and dyslexia) research, which might indicate that similar kinds of support and training would be beneficial.