Literacy of people with non-verbal Autism Spectrum Disorder: a pedagogical intervention

Abstract

Reading and writing broaden access to knowledge, values and social practices, favoring communication, autonomy and cognitive development. Based on these assumptions, we define as a guiding problem for the research the following question: how to develop written language skills in children with non-verbal ASD? Thus, to understand and promote this process, we carried out a pedagogical intervention with five participants, aged between 7 and 12 years, enrolled in common and special schools. Literacy, with an emphasis on reading and writing, was carried out in 40 weekly and individual meetings, each lasting 60 minutes.  The pedagogical resources were developed with tablets and with the augmentative and alternative communication software Tobii Communicator 5. The proposal was inspired by the visomotor method of literacy, which integrates visual perception, motor movement, and syllabic structure. In the end, four children were literate, with two children achieving reading and writing of words with simple and complex syllabic structures, while two were limited to simple words. A child showed significant advances but did not appropriate the written language. The results show the feasibility and relevance of specific pedagogical strategies for the literacy of people with nonverbal ASD.