readerswithautism.com » Fiction

Inference Cuing: What is the most likely reason for that?

readers1 — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 04:45:01 +0000

By Richard Finegan

It has frequently been observed that children on the autism spectrum tend to be concrete and literal thinkers who have difficulty with abstract concepts like inferring a character’s unstated motive. When reading fiction, the concrete thinkers will focus narrowly on the minute physical details and often miss the “big picture.”

Fernando’s red jacket flapped in the wind as he raced on his new bicycle down Maple Street. Ignoring the stop sign at the end of the block, Fernando ran straight into the side of a passing city bus. When he woke up he heard a siren and realized he was in the back of an ambulance.

The child with autism should have no difficulty telling you that Fernando’s jacket was red, and his bike was new. He probably would be able to report that Fernando ran into a bus.

Yet some may not recognize that the person in the ambulance is Fernando, because Fernando’s name is not stated in the last sentence, only the pronoun “he” is used (an example of anaphora). Children with autism frequently will not connect one sentence to the next, even within paragraphs.

While it may seem to us both obvious and critically important for the reader to recognize that Fernando is injured, the child with autism may make no such connections without coaching. They do not always think about the ramifications of coats flapping in the wind, bicycles speeding, and stop signs ignored. The visual image of a child’s body striking the side of a moving bus does not automatically come to them, or necessarily suggest to them an ambulance ride to the hospital, or worse.

Anaphoric cuing (about which there are several articles on this blog) teaches the child to stop when he gets to anaphora and ask himself who or what, or where or when or why questions to focus his attention on the meaning of what he is reading by identifying the referent words. The reader needs to think about who is waking up in an ambulance, and why. Was Fernando napping or was he knocked unconscious?

Inferring motive

A character’s motives may be similarly difficult for the child with autism to recognize, even when they seem clear to most readers.

Bob’ s favorite green Boston Celtics hat was missing from his locker! He looked up and down the hallway and spotted George wearing a green hat! Bob ran down the hall, shoved George against the wall, and grabbed the hat off his head. As Bob was walking away, he noticed that the green hat he was holding said Dallas Mavericks.

The child with autism might know that Celtic hats are green, might know Bob’s was missing, might know the hat George was wearing was green, and yet may be stumped by the question: Why did Bob shove George and take his hat? Since the text does not explicitly say that Bob suspected George of taking his hat, the reader with autism might not make this seemingly obvious inference.

How to infer state of mind, emotion, or motive from a character’s actions is something that must be taught patiently to young readers with autism. Often the teacher or aide must have to learn how to recognize themselves when they are inferring so they can guide the student to a similar inference.

What is most likely?

When a character is described as frowning and speaking loudly, we may infer “anger” without even being aware we made an inference.

Julia waited on the front porch of Elizabeth’s house for 15 minutes. When Elizabeth finally came outside, Julia frowned and asked loudly, “Can we go now?”

The concrete thinker, if asked, might surprise us with the number of other possible (if implausible) explanations for speaking loudly while frowning. They can always come up with fanciful scenarios (“maybe a caterpillar crawled in her ear“) which have no connection whatsoever to the text. They may need to be prompted to focus their thinking on what is most common and most likely under the circumstances of the story.

What are the most common reasons why someone would do that?

What is the most likely reason this character is doing that, considering what just happened to her?

Keeping track of details is a strength

When instructing a whole classroom of students, most of which do not have autism, on a long piece of fiction one may discover an advantage that many readers with autism have: they can often keep track of a surprising number of minor characters and minute details, even if they have difficulty connecting them.

A high school student with autism, having studied an abridged version of Romeo and Juliet for several weeks in class, was watching the Zefferelli film and laughed to himself when Romeo’s servant, Balthazar, passes a monk on a donkey while on his way to Mantua to tell Romeo of Juliet’s apparent death. “Friar John” the student said. Friar John was not named in the version of the play studied. The name was mentioned once in class weeks before.

I have also observed (to my surprise) that some children with autism are as capable as other kids of learning the meaning of idioms such as “nose to the grindstone” or “sick as a dog” or “hold your horses.” In fact, they may even recognize the humor in certain idioms, once they learn the meaning, that others more familiar with the terms may overlook. Drawing an absurd picture to illustrate a witty idiom may be great fun for these children.

So he resists reading: What does he like?

readers1 — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 23:11:20 +0000

Few children, even those not on the autism spectrum, will voluntarily read something they aren’t interested in.

When we have students with reading comprehension problems, perhaps with hyperlexia, who have difficulty making meaning of what they read, it helps greatly if they care that they don’t get it. Do they want to know about these characters and what is happening to them?

The first task of the the teacher and paraeducator in trying to help a struggling reader is to engage him or her in the reading.

Find something that interests the child.

When your struggling reader with autism is allowed to freely choose a book in the classroom library, what does she choose?

Even “fake readers,” kids who turn the pages, look at the pictures, and recite from memory passages they’ve heard read aloud, will generally return to the same books, or series of books, or subjects (butterflies, horses, ancient Mesopotamia).

When they are being read to, by the teacher in a read aloud, or by a parent, is there something particular they like to have read to them?

This can be a way in for some kids, but often the child with autism has receptive language deficits which make it difficult for him or her to follow a story read aloud.

If they simply don’t (yet) relate to books…

Do they watch animated movies? Finding Nemo? Toy Story? Ice Age? Shrek?
Do they like live action films? Harry Potter? Spy Kids? Spiderman? High School Musical?
Are they crazy about TV shows? ICarly? Wizards of Waverly Place? Suite Life of Zack and Cody?
What about cartoons on cable? Pokemon? Scooby-Doo? Dora the Explorer?

Finding what interests them is a way into their imaginations. Whatever gets and holds their attention, whatever the medium (TV, film, cartoon) can be used to transfer their interest and attention to text. Almost anything produced for kids on film or video is also available in some print form or another.

Knowing what the child cares about allows you to find high-interest fiction tailored just for him or her, and high-interest fiction may be just what it takes to begin engaging that struggling reader and make them care about the story they are reading.

Anaphoric cuing: We are Number 1!

readers1 — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:36:21 +0000

Search the term anaphoric cuing today on Yahoo! and you’ll get 29,700 results. And the winner is…www.readerswithautism.com!

On Google, and on bing, we come in at number three. Not bad, we think, for a blog that began in August 2009.

Granted, not many teachers and parents yet know the term anaphoric cuing. But we hope that is changing. We are trying to do our part to hasten the day when kids on the autism spectrum (and/or with hyperlexia) no longer struggle to comprehend narrative writing. And to provide adults endeavoring to teach those kids with the tools to help them enjoy the fun of reading fiction.

Fiction with a purpose (but one at a time)

readers1 — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 16:15:09 +0000

By Sara Finegan

You might have noticed that most (but not all) readers with autism prefer non-fiction to fiction.

With the exception of Bobby, all of my students on the spectrum have gravitated toward the fact-based section of our classroom library.

Many of them become mini-encyclopedias themselves as they develop particular areas of expertise due to their highly-focussed interests. They’ll read the same books over and over (and over) again. They’ll re-read the same pages on a regular basis.

They don’t seem to have a whole lot of difficulty understanding expository text. I think I know why.

Why is non-fiction easier to understand?

First, expository text tends to have primarily literal significance. The writing is clear and straightforward, organized and efficient. There aren’t a lot of critical thinking requirements. There are just facts.

To be sure, someone who really wants to have a deep knowledge of a given topic needs to be able to connect, analyze, evaluate and synthesize the facts, and someone on the autism spectrum may not be able to do so very easily. But it is not required.

Secondly, the text doesn’t contain a lot of the features that someone with autism might find difficult. There is very little figurative language, not much in the way of emotions, and there aren’t usually characters one needs to think about in any way other than as actors in a scene. No inferences need to be made, no empathy is necessary.

The text does, however, have certain features that I think have great meaning for a reader with autism:

The text is organized into sections in most of our non-fiction library books.
The chapters don’t go on and on.
There are independent passages separated by photos, topic headings, captions, etc.
One can read just a short piece of the text and get information, make meaning.
Reading stamina doesn’t have to be too great to perform meaningful reading tasks.

And then there’s the fact that the relationship between the reader and the text is much easier than with fiction. The reader can ask questions and get them answered without too much probing. The reader’s job is just to collect information, gather facts, and store them. This is something that many readers with autism are quite good at, and particularly enjoy.

A feeling of competence ensues when a reader with autism can navigate through this kind of text without much difficulty.

What I like about my readers with autism and their relationship to expository text is that it shows me that they very clearly understand about reading with purpose.

Having a purpose for reading is essential to comprehension.

When we read a book about Ancient Egypt, or about shellfish, we have a purpose, which is to learn about how people lived back then, or the different kinds of sea creatures that live on the ocean floor. The text is replete with facts and we know that our job is to collect them. We know, in other words, what we’re looking for. We know what questions we want answered.

It’s not that easy with fiction…

…which is why kids with autism often don’t know how to relate to that kind of text. It’s not immediately obvious what they’re supposed to be looking for, and even if they have an idea, the finding part often requires deeper thinking or more steps.

Inferring might be necessary (which is completely alien to most readers with autism) or comparing one character’s motives to another. If I wasn’t good at making inferences, or if I didn’t know why I was supposed to be reading a novel, I wouldn’t want to read fiction either.

My question is always: How do I harness the skills this reader obviously has when it comes to non-fiction and help her to use it with fiction?

The first thing is to give the reader a purpose. A job, if you will, to do while she’s reading. Something she knows how to do, not something that is alien and uncomfortable. Like…

identifying all of the parts of the setting, or
making a graphic organizer about the relationships between characters, or
physical decriptions of the people in a story.

These are all parts of the story that the reader is probably going to be able to understand without having to do too much work, and since they are all about outward manifestations or connections between people, they call for literal understanding, not in-depth thinking, which we are not going to be working on just yet.

One reading “purpose” at a time

I assign the child only one type of thing to be looking for; no multi-tasking is involved.

TIP: At this point in the reader’s exploration of fiction with purpose, I am not going to give her a long story or a chapter book. In the first exercises of this nature, with these kinds of purposes, I am going to provide her with a short, one-page story with as many familiar text features as possible, including topic headings and maybe a picture or two with a caption. If this means that I need to retype a page to insert headings, I am willing to do that.

The goal is to make the fiction text look as much like non-fiction as possible from a superficial level – it’s reassuring and familiar, and eliminates a lot of anxiety for my reader.

The assignment is quick and dirty, and I expect my reader to come back to me or the classroom aide with a report fairly soon. With any luck, the child will have located the information I asked for, and can repeat it back.

Are we going to try to engage in a long conversation about it? Absolutely not. If this is a child who avoids fiction like the plague, what I am going to do is heap the praise, repeat the information back, and have the child do some sort of quick exercise with me to cement the experience. This might be dictating to me a series of key words found in the text, or doing a quick entry into a graphic organizer. Five minutes.

And then the child is sent off to do something she loves, which might be going back to the same old book about shellfish, or bouncing on a ball. Something pleasurable.

Same text, different purpose

The next time we approach the fiction work, we’re going to use the same text. But now we’re going to assign a different purpose. If the student collected data about the setting during the last read-through, now I’m going to ask her to find out what the characters look like.

Once again, the child is being given a specific purpose to find readily-located information in the fiction passage. And once again, the reporting back is going to be quick, followed by a quick recording activity and a lot of praise.

“How cool! You’re reading a fiction story! And you understand it, don’t you! I’m so proud of you. Now go take a play break.”

I may have the child read the fiction passage 3 or 4 times, each time with a different purpose. I want her to become relaxed with the text, and to experience success in making meaning of what the story is telling.

Lots of practice, short pieces

A reader with autism who is just beginning to experience success in comprehending parts of fiction stories is going to need a lot of practice with short pieces. I try to have a selection available at the child’s independent reading level or a little lower than that, even, so that we can pick and choose several to work on over a two to three week period.

I’ll write about the next steps in another week or two.

Finding the words: Helping a child with autism talk about reading

readers1 — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 17:18:34 +0000

By Sara Finegan

Weak reading comprehension for children with autism is a dysfunctional cycle that can be broken if we work at it over time.

The cycle is this: Autism involves expressive and receptive language deficits. Kids with receptive language disorders have difficulty understanding what words mean. Kids with expressive language disorders have difficulty using words to express ideas.

Reading comprehension requires that kids be able to understand what words mean. Demonstration of comprehension requires that kids be able to express their understanding of text, in words. (Though there are other ways kids can show their understanding, ultimately verbal expression is going to be required.)

Even when a reader with autism reads and understands a piece of text, expressing that comprehension is often difficult. Imagine that you want desperately to convey an idea, but most of the words you want to use are not immediately available to you. They’re at the tip of your tongue, but you can’t pull them up and use them with dexterity.

Think back to a time when, perhaps, you were learning another language. Eventually you could ask for things or describe places, or the weather, or people in very general terms, using pretty generic words:

“The boy is tall.”
“The teacher is good.”
“The weather is hot.”

But how easy was it to go into depth, and use more explicit descriptions?

“The tall boy could reach all the way to the top of the bookcase.”
“The teacher, who is patient and kind, helps students learn.”
“The humidity today is making us all feel like we are melting!”

It’s tough to use words we aren’t able to pull up with immediacy. Even when we can retrieve the words, putting them into fluent sentences with precise meaning often eludes kids with language disorders.

One can only imagine how daunting reading comprehension work can be, and how the frustration might produce inordinate anxiety and, ultimately, a sort of “frozen” attitude on the part of the reader with autism.

So how do we, who love and support readers with autism, help to “thaw” that frozen world of talking about reading, and lubricate the pathways that enable words to come forth?

We give them the words.

We give them the words.

Imagine, if you will, trying to use a foreign language to describe the weather, or a place, or a person with specificity and detail. Or to discuss an idea you have that is important and urgent. Now imagine that in front of you are the important vocabulary words you need. How much easier is it to produce those complex sentences, those precise ideas? Very.

This is the way we support our readers with autism to talk or write about what they are reading. It’s easy to do, and all you need are a few supplies (post-its or index cards and a marker) and a bit of extra pre-reading and preparation on your part.

Text selection and prep work

You want to begin with stories that are at your reader’s level, or slightly easier. Choose story books or short stories or passages. We do not begin with entire chapter books – not yet. The purpose here is to pull out important words for your student to use when talking about the story.

For the purpose of this blog entry, I will use one of my favorite stories, Bread and Jam for Frances. http://www.amazon.com/Bread-Jam-Frances-Russell-Hoban/dp/0064430960

Go through the story and select key words that you might use to describe various plot features (characters, setting, problem, solution, relationships). Right now, you are pulling words directly from the book. Choose words that are powerful vocabulary words: We are not interested in having our reader talk about “stuff” and “things” and “good” or “sad.” Each word gets written on a card or post-it.

What words would you use?

Now, think about how you would describe the story. What verbs would you use? What adjectives and adverbs? Write them on index cards or post-its.

At the conclusion of these two preparatory activities, you should have between 15 and 20 cards, each with a single word. You are ready to support your reader with autism now.

This is the time to have your child read the story. I like to tell them a little bit about the book first, with a one-sentence introduction that uses a few of the words that I wrote on the index cards, words, that aren’t directly in the story but came from the second preparatory activity. For example: “this is a funny story about a badger named Frances, whose parents get very creative about handling her wish to only eat one kind of food every single day.”

Have the child read through the story a couple of times. Allow him or her time to enjoy it.

Giving the words and modeling their use

When the time comes to explore the comprehension issue, spread the index cards or post-its out on the table. Sometimes it’s soothing to have the child organize them as he or she wishes: making orderly rows, or designs with the words is a good way to enter into this activity.

Take turns with the child reading each of the words aloud. Put each of the words into a sentence for the child to hear. These sentences are not to be about the story, but rather are examples of how the word might be used in a sentence or to express an idea. For example:

Squishy: “I hate it when mud gets squishy between my toes. Ick! ”
Stubborn: I wanted my son to take a nap, but he was stubborn and kept insisting that he wanted to play in the back yard.”
Patient: “My teacher was very patient with me when I was trying to learn my multiplication facts. “

Now you are ready to begin your conversation about the story. You will start by asking an open-ended question, perhaps about a character or the setting, and YOU will answer it, to model for the child. In formulating your answer, do a “think-aloud” about choosing the right words and putting them together. This helps the child see how we retrieve and use words to answer questions and that it’s not an automatic thing for everyone. Example:

“Ok, the question is, what kind of kid is Frances? Well, what are some good words to use? I see the word stubborn. That’s a good one. And also routine. I like that word. And oh, here is the word refuse! That’s a great one.

Ok. So let’s see how I can use these words. Frances is……that’s a good start. Frances is a girl who……likes a routine. Yes. Frances is a girl who likes a routine. She……refuses to eat anything but bread and jam. Yeah. Frances is a girl who likes a routine and refuses to eat anything but bread and jam.

How can I put in the word stubborn? Ok. She is so stubborn about it that she trades an egg salad sandwich for bread and jam. Yeah! Frances is a girl who likes a routine. She refuses to eat anything but bread and jam. She is so stubborn about it that she trades her egg salad sandwich for bread and jam.”

TIP: Questions that result in a “yes” or “no” answer defeat the purpose of helping a child talk about reading. Try to focus on the kinds of questions that force a reader to give a longer answer. Help the child expand the answer into a more complex sentence or group of sentences by asking things like “Oh! Where did you learn that?” or “What makes you think that?” or “Can you tell me more about this?”

Using the words

Now you are ready to have your reader with autism give it a try. Start with a simple open-ended question. Be patient but encouraging as the child works through the answer, pointing if necessary to the word cards and reminding him or her that there are choices available. Try to get the child to use two to four of the word cards in formulating the answer.

Model the choice of vocabulary

This is the way to begin a conversation in which the words are more readily available to the child. I sometimes alternate turns, so that the student gets a chance to see and hear me model how I select and use words, and then an immediate opportunity to practice the skill. This should be done if the child is really struggling, until such time as she or he is ready to start assuming greater responsibility for independent work and thought.

Note: Word choice and fluency go hand in hand. Every time the child makes a statement, listen carefully. If the child makes a grammatical error or stumbles, or if you see an opportunity to combine two simple sentences into a complex one, repeat the sentence correctly and have the child repeat it. For example:

Child: “Frances enjoy to play with her friends. She play baseball. ” Teacher: “Ah. Frances enjoys playing baseball with her friends. Can you say that again?”

Expanding and deepening the use of words

What we are doing here, by providing the child with words, is encouraging and supporting talk. We want our reader with autism to talk, and talk as much as possible about the story. For this reason, we should not be content with simple, one-sentence statements.

The way to support greater and greater amounts of talk is to keep bringing back the previous answers, and incorporating them into our ongoing conversation. Think of it as doing an ongoing restatement of the story. There’s a lot of repetition, but the more a child with expressive language deficits repeats things, the more fluent, comfortable, and firmly embedded the language will be.

By the third answer in our discussion of Bread and Jam for Frances, the child is saying this:

“ Frances is a girl who likes a routine. She refuses to eat anything but bread and jam. She is so stubborn about it that she trades her egg salad sandwich for bread and jam. I like her parents. They are very patient with Frances when she won’t eat chicken salad or squishy eggs. Her mother decides to give Frances bread and jam for every meal. So when everyone else has a regular dinner, she puts just bread and jam on Frances’ plate. ”

Don’t worry if the child can’t remember all of that. You tell the child, and have him or her repeat it back. Point to word cards as you go, if this helps.

Incentives and celebrations

Everyone has some way of motivating and encouraging a child with tangible rewards for doing hard work. Some of my students use sticker cards and get a sticker for every time they use a word from the cards. Others like raffle tickets – I give a raffle ticket for every word used in the final summary, at the end of the conversation, and once a week we have a drawing for prizes from the dollar store.

And everyone, everyone loves praise. Be enthusiastic about the conversation. Kvell at your child’s use of language! Be specific: “I love the way you described how Frances got bored with bread and jam!” “When you talked about the family eating dinner, I felt like I was there! You are really able to describe what happened, buddy!”
Repeat, rinse, repeat

Repetition is key. The word cards and conversation are not a one-time deal. Try to work with the child at least three times on the same story, with the same cards, over a period of 3-7 days. The activity will go much more quickly as time goes by, and the child will be more fluent and more expressive and more complete in the summary of the story.

At the conclusion of the final session, I always have my students write about the story. They use exactly the same sentences they’ve been rehearsing aloud. They can use the vocabulary cards to spell some of the harder words, and might be invited, under the summary, to draw a picture of their favorite scene. Displaying student work and having the child read the summary aloud to a peer or administrator are terrific way to showcase the excellent and deep work that has been accomplished.