Abstract
Objectives
Many school-aged children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder display challenges in literacy development. Early learning experiences in the home and the community are important for the development of literacy success. Community libraries deliver story time to support children’s literacy experience and to provide parents with literacy teaching strategies. Little research has been conducted on the uptake of literacy experiences of families with children who have autism. This study investigated the early literacy experiences in the home and community of children (2–5 years) who have autism compared with their typically developing peers.
Methods
Participants included parents of children who have autism (n = 41) and parents of typically developing children (n = 164). Parents completed an online questionnaire on early literacy, library visits, and early literacy session attendance.
Results
A rich home literacy environment was reported in both groups. Differences were reported between groups on interest in books and frequency of shared book reading. This appeared to be driven by the presence of the child’s language ability (level of phrase speech). When controlled for presence of phrase speech, the group differences were no longer evident. Significant group differences were reported on reasons for not attending early literacy library sessions. Parents of children who have autism more frequently identified unsuitability of the environment and child not interested as reasons for nonattendance than parents of typically developing children.
Conclusion
Identifying barriers to early literacy experiences for children who have autism is important to inform future development of supportive experiences for literacy development in this group.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank the Brisbane City Council Librarian Staff and families who participated in this project.
Funding
The authors acknowledge the financial support of the Cooperative Research Centre for Living with Autism, established and supported under the Australian Government. This project has also received financial assistance from the Queensland Government through the State Library of Queensland and the First 5 Forever program.
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KS collaborated with the design and execution of the study, assisted with the data analysis, and wrote the paper. JP collaborated with the design and execution of the study, analysed the data, and collaborated with the writing of the study. RW analysed the data and wrote part of the results. MW collaborated with the design and managed the execution of the study, helped conceptualize the analysis, and assisted in writing of the paper.
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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with ethical standards of the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research. This study was approved by the Griffith University Human Research Ethics Committee (2017/391).
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Simpson, K., Paynter, J., Wicks, R.T. et al. Early Literacy Learning Experiences across Home and Community Libraries for Young Children Who Have Autism. Adv Neurodev Disord 4, 74–84 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41252-019-00145-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41252-019-00145-7