"I'm not sure about the exact term, but it may be concept imagery. My son has excellent reading and spelling skills; however, he can't always answer or sequence events from a story that has been read. If it was video, he does extremely well. What can we do as parents or the teachers do to be able to help him? He will be in 4th grade next year. A lot of times he is accused of not paying attention or listening, but we feel this plays off the other thing. It effects all subjects at school since everything plays off of reading comprehension. Any suggestions or information would greatly be appreciated. Thank you." DH

Answer: Kerry Hogan, Psychoeducational Therapist, Chapel Hill TEACCH Center

Your question regarding concept development and reading comprehension is a good one. This is an area of learning that is crucial to educational success but is not always addressed for students with autism. Most children intuitively know that the purpose of reading is to gain information about the story. Before they learn to read, years of hearing bedtime stories, watching TV, and looking at books, teaches children that some bits of information in the story are more important than others. They learn to look out for that information and then use that important information to draw general conclusions about the meaning of the story. When they become readers, they continue to look for that information.

Children with autism do not always do this. Many children with autism think that the point of reading is decoding the words. They enjoy this process and are often very good at it, but then they miss the point that they are reading for a purpose. Even when they are trying to gather the point of the story, they have difficulty picking out the most important information. Their good attention to detail often prevents them from seeing the big picture. It is the old, "seeing the forest for the trees," problem. So what to do?

1. Practice picking out important information in the environment or in simple stories that you read together. Choose easy topics, picture books, or even movies so that your child is not so distracted by simply decoding and has to think about the story.

2. Write, "beginning," "middle," and "end" on 3 sticky notes and then have your son place them in parts of the story that he thinks fit these labels.

3. Cut out comic strips and mix them up to practice placing stories in a sequence.

4. Create story maps or webs that will help your child outline the important information in a story. For example, a story web might look like this:

This is a visual organizational strategy that helps the student pick out the information in the text that is most important and then to organize it under specific topics. You can individualize this type of strategy into almost any situation. If your son has to write a story about summer vacation, he can fill out a web first, outlining 3 things that he's going to do, 3 things that he wants to do, who he will be with, and the best thing about summer. Once you have figured out a pattern for analyzing information, you can practice it in any situation. When you pick your son up from school ask him, "What did you do in the beginning of the day? What happened in the middle? How did the day end?" When you tell him about your day frame it in these terms as well so that he starts to see that information has these organization qualities.

5. When your child is given assignments to read part of a story or textbook and then report on its content, your child's teacher should break down the assignment into small steps saying exactly which aspects of the text should be addressed. In an assignment about volcanoes the other students may be asked to, "Summarize the chapter on volcanoes in your science book." The student with autism will be more successful if asked to write several short summaries of each section of the chapter. For example, a good assignment for the student with autism might be:

Write 3 sentences about what a volcano is.
Write 2 sentences about where you can find a volcano.
Write 4 sentences about why volcanoes erupt.
Write 2 sentences about your favorite part of the chapter.

6. Ask your child's teachers for permission to write in his textbooks. Highlight important information in the text (including headings or other textual cues to important information). This will help your child start to seek out information that is most important.

Good luck! The transition from "learning to read" to "reading to learn" is a tricky one for students with autism and will be a long process, but visual strategies and practice should get you where you want to go.