Comparing growth in linguistic comprehension and reading comprehension in school-aged children with autism versus typically developing children.
Autistic kids learn language and reading at the same speed as peers but never catch up—start early and raise the floor.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team tracked language and reading comprehension for 30 months in school kids with and without autism.
They tested the same children every few months to map growth curves, not just a single snapshot.
What they found
Kids with autism started lower and stayed lower in both skills, even though their speed of growth matched their peers.
The gap never closed, but it also did not widen.
How this fits with other research
Reichard et al. (2019) saw the same pattern in younger children: receptive vocabulary grew at the same pace yet stayed 2–3 points behind.
Eussen et al. (2016) found an earlier hint of this in preschool print concepts—same rate, lower start.
Shah et al. (2025) adds that stronger parent-child attunement predicts better reading comprehension in school-age kids with autism, giving us a lever to try.
Why it matters
Because growth rates are equal, the key is to raise the starting line, not just provide more practice. Begin language-comprehension work as early as possible and keep baseline skills on your data sheet. While you teach, loop parents in—warm, turn-taking conversation during homework may boost reading scores more than extra worksheets.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Add a 5-minute parent-coached shared-reading period to your session and track baseline comprehension weekly.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
UNLABELLED: Many children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) struggle with reading comprehension. Linguistic comprehension is an important predictor of reading comprehension, especially as children progress through elementary school and later grades. Yet, there is a dearth of research examining longitudinal relations between linguistic comprehensions in school-age children with ASD compared to typically-developing peers (TD). This study compared the developmental trajectories of linguistic and reading comprehension in samples of children with ASD and age-matched TD peers. Both groups were administered measures of linguistic and reading comprehension multiple times over a 30-month period. Latent growth curve modeling demonstrated children with ASD performed at significantly lower levels on both measures at the first timepoint and these deficits persisted across time. Children with ASD exhibited growth in both skills comparable to their TD peers, but this was not sufficient to enable them to eventually achieve at a level similar to the TD group. Due to the wide age range of the sample, age was controlled and displayed significant effects. Findings suggest linguistic comprehension skills are related to reading comprehension in children with ASD, similar to TD peers. Further, intervention in linguistic comprehension skills for children with ASD should begin early and there may be a finite window in which these skills are malleable, in terms of improving reading comprehension skills. Autism Res 2018, 11: 624-635. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: There is relatively little research concerning reading comprehension development in children with ASD and how they compare to TD peers. This study found children with ASD began at lower achievement levels of linguistic comprehension and reading comprehension than TD peers, but the skills developed at a similar rate. Intervening early and raising initial levels of linguistic and reading comprehension may enable children with ASD to perform similarly to TD peers over time.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2018 · doi:10.1002/aur.1914