Recall with Concept Mapping: Effects on Young Children’s’ Responses to Science Text

Background: Effective reading instruction is vital for children to become independent readers (Boulineau et al., 2004). The high proportion (about 33%) of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who struggle with reading comprehension exceeds that of their typically developing peers (7-10%), (Lucas & Norbury, 2014). An extensive amount of research has been published in reading instruction; however, less published research is available on reading comprehension instruction, particularly for students with ASD. Although some work has been published documenting the effectiveness of RECALL (Whalon, Delano, & Hanline, 2013; Whalon, Martinez, Shannon, Butcher, & Hanline, 2015; Whalon, Hanline, & Davis, 2016), there have been no studies using RECALL with nonfiction text

Objectives: This poster will describe findings from a reversal design study including two participants with ASD ages five using RECALL visuals with concept maps while using science texts. The importance of this study is highlighted by the fact that students with ASD choose majors in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) at higher rates than students in the general population (Wei et al., 2013).

Methods: During all phases, the interventionist read a science book aloud while asking 5 scripted fact and inference questions. Following the reading, participants responded to a post-test assessment (i.e., a combination of 5 fact and inference based questions). Intervention differed from baseline with the addition of a prompting hierarchy that incorporated RECALL visuals and a concept map (i.e., main topic and four related topics about the book). The dependent variable was the number of correct responses to the five post-test questions without the use of the RECALL visuals or concept map.

Results: Results indicate both participants benefited from the concept map and the use of RECALL strategies to increase their ability to answer fact and inference based comprehension questions relating to science text.

Conclusions: As students with ASD are being included in general education classes with their peers (Kluth & Darmody-Latham, 2003), content area instruction is essential. This pilot study assessed the effect of a concept map on the comprehension of science text for ASD using RECALL strategies with two five-year-old boys. Only one other study has used both concept mapping (Roberts & Joiner, 2007) and science text with individuals with ASD. Therefore, this study adds to our knowledge that the use of visual supports and a visual map with effective RECALL strategies can increase listening comprehension skills of children with ASD.