Reading Comprehension Research and Autistic People: The Lack of Autistic People's Voices

• In Event: Centering Autistic Experiences and Expertise for Educational Transformation

Abstract

Researchers who investigate how Autistic students comprehend texts oftentimes position these students as innately deficient. The use of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is cited to describe Autistic learners, but because this manual is a diagnostic tool, it portrays Autistic people as a list of deficits. Reading comprehension is a task that requires one to reflect on their own experiences in conjunction with information the text presents and it follows that being Autistic in a largely neurotypical world leads to a different set of experiences. By centering Autistic people’s narrative writing, the author suggests literacy researchers need to rethink the link between deficient reading comprehension and Autistic students in their research.

Author

• Erin McCloskey, Vassar College