Longitudinal stability of reading profiles in individuals with higher functioning autism.
Reading profiles in higher-functioning autism are not fixed—re-assess comprehension and subskills periodically rather than relying on a single baseline.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team tracked reading skills in higher-functioning autism for 30 months. They wanted to know if the same reading profile stayed in place as kids got older.
They used latent profile analysis to sort readers into groups. Then they checked whether each child stayed in the same group or moved.
What they found
Reading profiles shifted. A child who started as a strong decoder could later show weak comprehension, or vice-versa. Age alone did not predict the change.
Autism symptom severity stayed tied to the same profile differences over time. Kids with milder traits kept milder traits, but their reading skills still moved around.
How this fits with other research
McIntyre et al. (2017) first found four clear reading profiles in HFASD and said they lined up with symptom severity. The new study keeps the four profiles but shows they are not fixed.
Wei et al. (2015) saw elementary students with ASD lose ground in passage comprehension over time. The 2019 data agree: profiles move, so a single baseline label is risky.
Fleury et al. (2018) tracked comprehension for 30 months and saw ASD kids grow at the same rate as peers yet never catch up. The current paper adds that within the ASD group, individual kids jump between profile levels, explaining why some seem to “catch up” while others fall further behind.
Why it matters
Do not write “poor comprehender” once and leave it. Re-test reading subskills every six to twelve months. A child who decodes well today may need comprehension support next year, or the reverse. Use brief, repeated probes of both decoding and understanding so your intervention plan matches the profile you see now, not the one from an old report.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The reading difficulties of individuals with autism spectrum disorders have been established in the literature, with particular attention drawn toward reading comprehension difficulties. Recent papers have highlighted the heterogeneous nature of reading abilities in this population by utilizing statistical methods that allow for investigations of unique reading profiles. This article extends this literature by investigating reading profiles longitudinally, to investigate the stability of reader profiles across time. Latent profile and transition analyses were conducted to establish categorically distinct reading profiles at two time points, 30 months apart. This study also examined whether age and autism symptom severity were related to the profiles at each time point. Finally, transitions between profiles at each time point were identified. Age did not predict profile membership, but there were significant differences in symptom severity that were largely stable over time. Results indicate that heterogeneous reading profiles exist within the autism population, ranging from average reading ability to severe difficulties across different reading subskills. The data from this study demonstrate that reading profiles of children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders shift when examined across time.
Autism : the international journal of research and practice, 2019 · doi:10.1177/1362361318812423