Analysis: For autistic children beginning to read and write, it starts with the child's perception of their own lives and what reading is to them
Literacy for all is defined as the ability to read, write, speak, and listen in a way that lets us communicate effectively and make sense of the world. Literacy involves social practices. Learning to learn starts at home and learning to be literate is learning to master the skills of communicating with your family and negotiating family life, social life, and school life through a variety of modes.
In his piece on how children learn to read, Dr Patrick Burke talks about the complexity of learning to read, the importance of the development of oral language an ‘knowing the code’. ‘Knowing the code’ of relationships between letters and sounds, individual words, and phrase constructions is a process in learning to read.
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But for autistic children starting to read and write, it begins with the child’s perception of their own lives and what reading is to them. This is not necessarily related to a reading scheme/programme. For them, knowing the code relates to the child and the communication partner or caregiver having established a communication system or ‘currency’ that is culturally meaningful to personal routines and practices.
This is a key element of literacy for autistic children as they may take longer in knowing the code to communicate effectively and make meaning and sense of their social and emotional world. In a study on literacy for children with autism, parents defined literacy as 'being able to connect' or ‘being able to connect with other people’. This definition of literacy is essential to their child’s success in learning and life.
To understand the autistic child's literacy practices and needs, parents, teachers and the public must consider the uniqueness of each autistic child, their diagnosis and the links between social communications and patterns of behaviours. Two areas embedded in this process are related to the thought processes of the child. The first is how the child perceives, recognises, constructs and analyses patterns within their social and communication environments. The second is how children perceive their own intentions and the intentions of others, including actions and expected outcomes.
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This starts very early in childhood with a 'serve and return’ system between social partners. In autism studies, you might see terms such as ‘systemising’ and ‘empathising’ which means simply that we are talking about problem solving in social and learning relationships. Literacy is a problem solving/‘serve and return’ system and requires both parties to understand and be flexible to the meanings and/or contributions of the other, especially in both non-verbal and verbal situations.
For example, if a coach in rugby practice calls a child’s name, the child turns to the coach and recognises that the coach is poised to throw the ball. The child then extends their hands and prepares to catch the ball. Only one word is spoken, but that is ‘knowing the code’.
A lot of practice and engagement is needed to get to this level of understanding across all contexts of interaction. Responding to your own name is one element of literacy. Understanding, in context, for the autistic child, may be that the object of the ball means ‘catch’ rather than a ‘round’ play object. Relationships that maintain focus on the purpose of the communication and establishing a commitment to understand each other’s intentions and behaviours can increase an autistic child’s connections to their world and then in turn support reading and writing.
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You've heard the saying, attributed to Dr Stephen Shore, that 'when you’ve met a person with autism you have met a person with autism". Being open to understanding autism is important and reaching out to learn about autism is highly recommended, but we must unpack the problem of ourselves as we learn about autism. What are your blind spots about autism, your assumptions, presumptions, and stereotypical beliefs? How will you keep these in check as you progress in understanding that autism does not define the person or child?
Why do I mention this? When we are faced with challenges like supporting and teaching literacy to autistic children, we don't always look inwardly and often try to protect ourselves from the reality of our blind spots. We store assumptions based on ideas we have picked up (from experts or others) but don’t really understand and we accept them as truths (such as, Peter has autism because he flaps to self-regulate, Peter always needs the lights turned down because he is autistic etc). If we use these assumptions without reflection then do we presume without justification, logic, critical reflection or talking with Peter about Peter’s needs or capabilities? The challenge we face is reflection and reflexive practice.
Parents' definition of being literate for their autistic child means we should focus on creating opportunities for successful connections to 'know the code’. These should be connected to their own lives, family and friends and then making connections with texts in a relatable manner. Parents, families, teachers, and the public may need to reflect on our own ideas and expectation of language, communication, and literacy capabilities in support of children with autism.
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
