"Inferencing Ability and its Relation to Comprehension in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders"
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Tampa
Mentor Information
Matthew Foster
Description
Research suggests that children with autism spectrum disorders display varying difficulties with inferencing. Research identifies inferencing as necessary for comprehension, and skilled comprehension is an essential building block for effective early literacy development. The purpose of our study is to evaluate whether improved inferencing skills are indeed associated with increased comprehension performance in children with autism spectrum disorders. In our study, we investigate the relationship between inferencing and comprehension operationalized as listening comprehension and vocabulary skills. To accomplish this, participants were presented with storybook passages and images via a virtual meeting conducted between the child and the researcher. The child is asked a series of questions related to what they have heard or seen for each of the three measures. Thus far, we have data from 13 children with autism spectrum disorders (Mage = 65 months; 75% male; 50% attend public schools). The majority of participants are White (67%), followed by African American (17%), Hispanic (8%), and other (8%). The home language of all the participants is English. Estimates of effect size suggest that inferencing predicts listening comprehension (R2 = .19) and vocabulary (R2 = .21) skills; however, with only 13 participants, our analyses are underpowered for null hypothesis statistical testing (ps = .16 and .13). In the future, we will conduct analyses with a larger sample. As that may be, the results provide tentative support that inferencing is an important skill to consider when thinking about intervening to improve comprehension skills of children with autism spectrum disorders.
"Inferencing Ability and its Relation to Comprehension in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders"
Research suggests that children with autism spectrum disorders display varying difficulties with inferencing. Research identifies inferencing as necessary for comprehension, and skilled comprehension is an essential building block for effective early literacy development. The purpose of our study is to evaluate whether improved inferencing skills are indeed associated with increased comprehension performance in children with autism spectrum disorders. In our study, we investigate the relationship between inferencing and comprehension operationalized as listening comprehension and vocabulary skills. To accomplish this, participants were presented with storybook passages and images via a virtual meeting conducted between the child and the researcher. The child is asked a series of questions related to what they have heard or seen for each of the three measures. Thus far, we have data from 13 children with autism spectrum disorders (Mage = 65 months; 75% male; 50% attend public schools). The majority of participants are White (67%), followed by African American (17%), Hispanic (8%), and other (8%). The home language of all the participants is English. Estimates of effect size suggest that inferencing predicts listening comprehension (R2 = .19) and vocabulary (R2 = .21) skills; however, with only 13 participants, our analyses are underpowered for null hypothesis statistical testing (ps = .16 and .13). In the future, we will conduct analyses with a larger sample. As that may be, the results provide tentative support that inferencing is an important skill to consider when thinking about intervening to improve comprehension skills of children with autism spectrum disorders.
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