A meta-analysis on the reading comprehension skills of individuals with autism spectrum disorders

• Author(s) / Creator(s)

  • Brown, Heather
  • Oram-Cardy, Janis
  • Johnson, Andrew

• This meta-analysis examined 36 studies comparing autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and control groups in reading comprehension. Three moderators (semantic knowledge, decoding skill, PIQ) and two text types (high vs. low social knowledge) were examined as predictors of reading comprehension in ASD. The overall standardized mean difference for reading comprehension was g = −0.7 SD. The strongest individual predictors of reading comprehension were semantic knowledge (explaining 57 % of variance) and decoding skill (explaining 55 % of variance). Individuals with ASD were significantly worse at comprehending highly social than less social texts. Having ASD alone does not predict reading comprehension deficits. Instead, individual skills, especially language ability, must be considered before one can accurately predict whether a given individual with ASD will experience difficulties in reading comprehension.

• Date created

  2013

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Semantic knowledge
  • Autism spectrum disorders
  • Decoding
  • Meta-analysis
  • Reading comprehension

• Type of Item

  Article (Published)

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R30P0X46M

• License

  © 2013 Brown, H., Oram-Cardy, J., and Johnson, A. This version of this article is open access and can be downloaded and shared. The original author(s) and source must be cited.