UC Riverside

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) display a number of associated deficits that may impact reading comprehension development. The simple view of reading suggests that reading comprehension is the product of decoding skills and oral language, which is a deficit area for students with ASD. Some literature has also suggested that social skills impact reading comprehension development. The present study examines the simple view of reading with added emphasis on social skills in two samples of students with ASD, kindergarteners (N = 128) and second graders (N = 73), using latent variable path analyses. The study also examines the relationship between social skills and reading skill growth across pre-kindergarten to second grade, the impact of oral language on this growth, and the impact of this growth on reading comprehension in a larger sample of students with ASD (N = 182) using longitudinal growth analyses. Results indicate that the simple view of reading, including social skills, was an appropriate model for both kindergarteners and second graders, with some differences between the models. Additionally, reading growth impacted later reading comprehension, although social skills growth did not.