Optimizing Emergent Literacy Interventions for Children with Autism

The primary research aim is to develop and evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of an adaptive shared reading intervention for preschool children with ASD through a pilot SMART. Children with ASD will be recruited from participating classrooms at the start of every school year for a total of four cohorts. Those who are identified as "at-risk" according to an early literacy screening tool and meet other inclusion criteria (i.e., ages of 4–5, English speaking, ASD diagnosis, and some language facility) will be eligible to participate. Across all 4 years, the PI will develop and refine components of the adaptive intervention for children with ASD through a pilot SMART study. In each year, participating classroom teachers will be trained to implement dialogic reading in groups of three to four students. Classrooms will be randomized to a first-stage intervention condition — either an early decision (4 week) condition or a late decision (8 week) condition. At the decision point, children's vocabulary knowledge will be assessed. Children who are either high performers or fast developers will continue with the group dialogic reading intervention. All other children (i.e., slow to respond) will be randomized to one of two intensified instructional conditions (second-stage intervention), either a one-to-one instructional arrangement or a modified dialogic reading condition that is implemented in small groups with more systematic instruction. Children's early literacy development will be assessed using a variety of measures prior to and after the study. Additional measures include video recordings of teachers' instruction to evaluate fidelity and questionnaires to evaluate teachers' perceptions of feasibility and acceptability. These data will be analyzed descriptively. Data from the pilot study will be analyzed to address the following research questions: (1) How does child engagement during book reading compare across iterations of the adaptive intervention?; (2) At what time point should educators determine that a child is not likely to respond if the first-stage dialogic reading intervention is continued?; and (3) Among children who are slow to respond to the first-stage intervention, should educators implement the instruction individually or modify the instruction but continue the group format?