The sociocultural nature of writing in children with autism
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jircd.21244Keywords:
autsim, literacy, socialization, strengths-based interventionAbstract
Background: In the field of communication disorders, practitioners work regularly with school-age children with autism. Routinely, socialization issues impact literacy in this population and consequently become areas of clinical concern. This study addressed common themes from an inquiry into the socialization processes of school-age children with autism as they engaged in writing events as a sociocultural tool in clinical contexts.
Method: A qualitative methodology was employed to investigate how three students with autism used writing as a sociocultural tool, and what opportunities the writing activities created for socialization over the course of one semester in a group intervention setting.
Results: Three general patterns emerged that highlight the strategies employed by participants which demonstrated their use of writing for socialization, and the sociocultural opportunities the writing process provided.
Discussion/conclusion: This study demonstrated that the context of the writing events, where the sociocultural nature of writing was appreciated and valued, created unique opportunities for the participants to engage, socialize, and essentially create a local peer culture.
References
Agar, M. H. (1986). Speaking of ethnography. Newbury Park: Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412985895
American Psychiatric Association (2013). Autism spectrum disorders. http://www.dsm5.org/Documents/AutismSpectrum DisorderFactSheet.pdf
Asaro-Saddler, K., and Bak, N. (2012). Teaching children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorders to write persuasive essays. Topics in Language Disorders, 32, 361–378. https://doi.org/10.1097/TLD.0b013e318271813f
Asaro-Saddler, K., and Saddler, B. (2010). Planning instruction and self-regulation training: Effects on writers with autism spectrum disorders. Exceptional Children, 77, 107–124. https://doi.org/10.1177/001440291007700105
Baker, M. J., Koegel, R. L., and Koegel, L. K. (1998). Increasing the social behavior of young children with autism using their obsessive behaviors. Research and Practice for Persons with Severe Disabilities, 23(4), 300–308. https://doi.org/10.2511/rpsd.23.4.300
Bakhtin, M. (1986). Speech genres and other late essays. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Barnes, J. L., Lombardo, M. V., Wheelwright, S., and Baron-Cohen, S. (2009). Moral dilemmas film task: A study of spontaneous narratives by individuals with autism spectrum disorders. Autism Research, 2, 148–156. https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.79
Baron-Cohen, S. (2020). The pattern seekers: How autism drives human invention. New York: Basic Books.
Basil C., and Reyes, S. (2003). Acquisition of literacy skills by children with severe disability. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 19(1), 27–48. https://doi.org/10.1191/0265659003ct242oa
Beilinson, J. S., and Olswang, L. B. (2003). Facilitating peer group entry in kindergarteners with impairments in social communication. Language, Speech and Hearing Services in Schools, 34, 154–166. https://doi.org/10.1044/0161-1461(2003/013)
Brown, H. M., and Klein, P. D. (2011). Writing, Asperger syndrome and theory of mind. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 41, 1464–1474. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-010-1168-7
Brown, H. M., Johnson, A. M., Smyth, R. E., and Cardy, J. O. (2014). Exploring the persuasive writing skills of students with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 8, 1482–1499. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rasd.2014.07.017
Bruner, J. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674029019
Bruner, J. (2004). A short history of psychological theories of learning. Daedalus, 113, 1. https://doi.org/10.1162/001152604772746657
Bury, M. (1982). Chronic illness as biographical disruption. Sociology of Health and Illness, 4, 167–182. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.ep11339939
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2019). CDC estimates. Retrieved on 4 November 2019 from https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/data.html
Conrad, P., and Barker, K. K. (2010). The social construction of illness: Key insights and policy implications. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 51, S67–S79. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022146510383495
Cooksey, E. C., and Brown, P. (1998). Spinning on its axes: DSM and the social construction of psychiatric diagnosis. International Journal of Health Services, 28, 525–554. https://doi.org/10.2190/1C4D-B7XT-BLLY-WH4X
Creswell, J. W. (2009). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Damico, H. (2014). An investigation of the processes of meaning construction in the writing behaviors of a child with language disorder. In M. J. Ball, N. Müller, and R. Nelson (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research in communication disorders (pp. 257–270). New York: Psychology Press.
Damico, H. L., Damico, J. S., Nelson, R. L., Weill, C., and Maxwell, J. (2016). Infusing meaning and joy back into books: Reclaiming literacy in the treatment of young children with autism spectrum disorder. In R. J. Meyer and K. F. Whitmore (Eds.), Reclaiming early childhood literacies: Narratives of hope, power, and vision (pp. 109–119). New York: Routledge.
Damico, J. S., and Nelson, R. L. (2005). Interpreting problematic behavior: Systematic compensatory adaptations as emergent phenomena in autism. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 19(5), 405–417. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699200400027163
Damico, J. S., and Nelson, R. L. (2010). Reading and reading impairments. In J. Damico, N. Müller, and M. Ball (Eds.), The handbook of language and speech disorders (pp. 267–295). Oxford: Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444318975.ch12
Damico, J. S., and Simmons-Mackie, N. N. (2003). Qualitative research and speech-language pathology: A tutorial for the clinical realm. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 12, 131–143. https://doi.org/10.1044/1058-0360(2003/060)
Damico, J. S., and Tetnowski, J. A. (2014). Triangulation. In C. J. Forsyth and H. Copes (Eds.), Encyclopedia of social deviance. Los Angeles: Sage.
Damico, J. S., Simmons-Mackie, N., Oelschlaeger, M., Elman, R., and Armstrong, E. (1999). Qualitative methods in aphasia research: Basic issues. Aphasiology, 13, 651–665. https://doi.org/10.1080/026870399401768
Damico, J. S., Nelson, R. L., and Bryan, L. (2008). Literacy as a sociolinguistic process for clinical purposes. In M. J. Ball (Ed.), Clinical Sociolinguistics (ch. 19). New York: John Wiley & Sons. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470754856
DeFord, D. E. (1980). Young children and their writing. Theory Into Practice, 19(3), 157–162. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405848009542893
Delano, M. E. (2007). The use of strategy instruction to improve the written responses of a student with Asperger syndrome. Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, 22, 252–258. https://doi.org/10.1177/10883576070220040701
Dindar, K., Korkiakangas, T., Laitila, A., and Kärna, E. (2016). Building mutual understanding: How children with autism spectrum disorder manage interactional trouble. Journal of Interactional Research in Communication Disorders, 7(1), 49–77. https://doi.org/10.1558/jircd.v7i1.28228
Dobbinson, S., Perkins, M., and Boucher, J. (2003). The interactional significance of formulas in autistic language. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 17, 299–308. https://doi.org/10.1080/0269920031000080046
Dockrell, J. E., Ricketts, J., Charman, T., and Lindsay, G. (2014). Exploring writing products in students with language impairments and autism spectrum disorders. Learning and Instruction, 32, 81–90. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2014.01.008
Dudley-Marling, C. (2004). The social construction of learning disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 37, 482–489. https://doi.org/10.1177/00222194040370060201
Durst, R. K., and Newell, G. E. (1989). The uses of function: James Britton’s category system and research on writing. Review of Educational Research, 59(4), 375–394. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543059004375
Dyson, A. H. (1999). Coach Bombay’s kids learn to write: ‘Children’s appropriation of media material for school literacy.’ Research in the Teaching of English, 33(4), 367–402. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40171462
Dyson, A. H. (2003). Writing and children’s symbolic repertoires: Development unhinged. In S. B. Neunan and O. K. Dickinson (Eds.), Handbook of early literacy research. New York: Guilford Press.
Eyal, G. (2013). For a sociology of expertise: The social origins of the autism epidemic. American Journal of Sociology, 118, 863–907. https://doi.org/10.1086/668448
Geekie, P., Cambourne, B., and Fitzsimmons, P. (1999). Understanding literacy development. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham Books.
Gergen, K. J. (2009). Relational being: Beyond self and community. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
Gergen, K. J., and Wortham, S. (2001) Social construction and pedagogical practice. In K. J. Gergen (Ed.), Social construction in context (pp. 115–136). London: Sage Publications.
Gernsbacher, M. A., Dawson, M., and Goldsmith, H. H. (2005). Three reasons not to believe in an autism epidemic. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14, 55–58. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0963-7214.2005.00334.x
Gobo, G. (2011). Ethnography. In D. Silverman (Ed.), Qualitative research (3rd ed.). London: Sage. https://doi.org/10.1080/17457823.2011.553077
Goodman, K. (1994). Reading, writing, and written texts: A transactional sociopsycholinguistic view. Theoretical Models and Processes of Reading, 4, 1093–1130.
Goodman, K., Strauss, S., and Fries, P. (2016). Reading the grand illusion: How and why people make sense of print. New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315658421
Greenspan, S. I., and Wieder, S. (2006). Engaging autism: Using floortime approach to help children relate, communicate, and think. Cambridge: DaCapo Press.
Grossman, M., Peskin, J., and San Juan, V. (2013). Thinking about a reader’s mind: Fostering communicative clarity in the compositions of youth with autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 43, 2376–2392. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-013-1786-y
Harris, K. R., Graham, S., and Mason, L. (2006). Improving the writing, knowledge, and motivation of struggling young writers: Effects of self-regulated strategy development with and without peer support. American Educational Research Journal, 43, 295–340. https://doi.org/10.3102/00028312043002295
Harste, J. C., Woodward, V. A., and Burke, C. L. (1984). Language stories and literacy lessons. Portsmouth: Heinemann.
Herrera, C., Seeberger, S., Nelson, and Abendroth, K. (2009). Interpreting finger-flapping in the reading behaviors of an individual with Asperger syndrome. Asia Pacific Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing, 13(3), 253–261. https://doi.org/10.1179/136132809805335346
Hewitt, L. E. (1994). Facilitating narrative comprehension: The importance of subjectivity. In J. F. Duchan, L. E. Hewitt, and R. M. Sonnenmeier (Eds.), Pragmatics: From theory to practice. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Hill, B., and Ruptic, C. (1994). Practical aspects of authentic assessment: Putting the pieces together. Norwood: Christopher-Gordon Publishers.
Johnson, D. W., and Johnson, R. T. (2009). Educational psychology success story: Social interdependence theory and cooperative learning. Educational Researcher, 38, 365–379. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X09339057
Koppenhaver, D. A, and Erickson, K. A. (2003). Natural emergent literacy supports for preschoolers with autism and severe communication impairments. Topics in Language Disorders, 23(4), 283–292. https://doi.org/10.1097/00011363-200310000-00004
Koppenhaver, D. A., Coleman, P. P., Kalman, S. L., and Yoder, D. E. (1991). The implications of emergent literacy research for children with developmental disabilities. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 1, 38–54. https://doi.org/10.1044/1058-0360.0101.38
Kovarsky, D. (2014). The ethnography of communication disorders revisited. In M. Ball, N. Müller, and J. S. Damico (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research in communicative disorders (pp. 55–78). New York: Psychology Press.
Lanter, E., Watson, L. R., Erickson, K. A., and Freeman, D. (2012). Emergent literacy in children with autism: An exploration of developmental and contextual dynamic processes. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 43, 308–324. https://doi.org/10.1044/0161-1461(2012/10-0083)
Lensmire, T. J., and Beals, D. E. (1994). Appropriating others’ words: Traces of literature and peer culture in a third-grader’s writing. Language in Society, 23, 411–426. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404500018042
Lewy, A. L., and Dawson, G. (1992). Social stimulation and joint attention in young autistic children. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 20, 555–566. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00911240
Liu, K.-Y., Zerubavel, N., and Bearman, P. (2010). Social demographic change and autism. Demography, 47, 327–343. https://doi.org/10.1353/dem.0.0101
Maxwell, J. (2015). An investigation of how school-age children with autism spectrum disorders use writing as a socio-cultural tool in the context of a meaning based literacy environment. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
Maxwell, J., Weill, C., and Damico, J. (2017). Investigating the use of appropriation in the writing of a child with autism: A case study. Journal of Communication Disorders, 65, 10–21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcomdis.2016.12.002
Maxwell, J., Nelson, R. L., Damico, H. L., Damico, J. S., and Weill, C. (2020). Reclaiming the sociocultural power of recontextualizing: ‘I put my name with lots of names’ in K. F. Whitmore and R. J. Meyer (Eds.), Reclaiming literacies as meaning making: Manifestations of values, identities, relationships, and knowledge. New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780367074227-33
Mirenda, P. (2003). ‘He’s not really a reader …’: Perspectives on supporting literacy development in individuals with autism. Topics in Language Disorders, 23, 271–282. https://doi.org/10.1097/00011363-200310000-00003
Moore, D. W., Anderson, A., Treccase, F., Deppeler, J., Furlonger, B., and Didden, R. (2013). A video-based package to teach a child with autism spectrum disorder to write her name. Journal of Developmental and Physical Disabilities, 25, 493–503. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10882-012-9325-x
Muma, J., and Cloud, S. (2010). Autism spectrum disorders: The state of the art. In J. S. Damico, N. Müller, and M. J. Ball (Eds.), The handbook of language and speech disorders. Oxford: Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444318975.ch7
Muskett, P., Perkins, M., Clegg, J., and Body, R. (2010). Inflexibility as an interactional phenomenon: Using conversation analysis to re-examine a symptom of autism. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 24(1), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.3109/02699200903281739
Myles, B., Huggins, A., Rome-Lake, M., Hagiwara, T., Barnhill, G., and Griswold, D. (2003). Written language profile of children and youth with Asperger syndrome: From research to practice. Education and Training in Developmental Disabilities, 38, 362–369. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23879912
Pennington, R. C., Stenhoff, D. M., Gibson, J., and Ballou, K. (2012). Using simultaneous prompting to teach computer-based story writing to a student with autism. Education and Treatment of Children, 35, 389–406. https://doi.org/10.1353/etc.2012.0022
Percle, A., Arrington, L., Flurkeym A. D., Damico, H., Weill, C., Damico, J., and Nelson, R. L. (2020). Illuminating the complexity of oral reading fluency: A multiple lens approach. Literacy Research, Theory, Method, and Practice, 69(1), 358–376. https://doi.org/10.1177/2381336920937269
Perkins, M. R. (2014). Linguistic recycling in typical and atypical interaction. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 28(7–8), 590–601. https://doi.org/10.3109/02699206.2014.926995
Piaget, J. (1970). Genetic epistemology. New York: Columbia University Press. https://doi.org/10.7312/piag91272
Prizant, B. M., and Wetherby, A. M. (1998). Understanding the continuum of discrete-trial traditional behavioral to social-pragmatic developmental approaches in communication enhancement for young children with autism/PDD. Seminars in Speech and Language, 19(4), 329–352. https://doi.org/10.1055/s-2008-1064053
Ranker, J. (2009). Student appropriation of writing lessons through hybrid composing practices: Direct, diffuse, and indirect use of teacher-offered writing tools in an ESL classroom. Journal of Literacy Research, 41, 393–431. https://doi.org/10.1080/10862960903340124
Rollins, P. R. (2016). Words are not enough: Providing the context communication and interaction. Topics in Language Disorders, 36, 198–216. https://doi.org/10.1097/TLD.0000000000000095
Routman, R. (2005). Writing essentials. Raising expectations and results while simplifying teaching. Portsmouth: Heinemann.
Rydell, P. J. (2012). Learning style profile for children with autism spectrum disorders [Kindle DX version]. http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Children-Spectrum-Disorders-ebook
Saddler, B. (2006). Increasing story-writing ability through self-regulation strategy development: Effects on young writers with learning disabilities. Learning Disability Quarterly, 29, 291–305. https://doi.org/10.2307/30035555
Silverman, D. (2014). Interpreting qualitative data: Methods for analyzing talk, text, and interaction. London and Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Simmons-Mackie, N., and Damico, J. S. (1999). Qualitative methods in aphasia research: Ethnography. Aphasiology, 13(9–11), 681–687. https://doi.org/10.1080/026870399401786
Solomon, O., and Bagatell, N. (2010). Autism: Rethinking the possibilities. Ethos, 38, 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1352.2009.01078.x
Spradley, J. P. (1980). Participant observation. Long Grove: Waveland Press, Inc. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1352.2009.01078.x
Staples, A., and Edmister, E. (2012). Evidence of two theoretical models observed in young children with disabilities who are beginning to learn to write. Topics in Language Disorders, 32, 319–334. https://doi.org/10.1097/TLD.0b013e3182724d29
Steiner, A. M. (2011). A strength-based approach to parent education for children with autism. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 13(3), 178–190. https://doi.org/10.1177/1098300710384134
Sterponi, L., and de Kirby, J. (2017). What discourse analytic approaches contribute to the study of language and autism: A focus on conversation analysis. Research on Children and Social Interaction, 1(1), 30–54. https://doi.org/10.1558/rcsi.28458
Sterponi, L., and Shankey, J. (2014). Rethinking echolalia: Repetition as an interactional resource in the communication of a child with autism. Journal of Child Language, 41(2), 275–304. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000912000682
Straus, J. N. (2013). Autism as culture In L. J. Davis (Ed.), The disability studies reader (4th ed., pp. 460–484). New York: Routledge.
Stribbling, P., Rae, J., and Dickerson, P. (2009). Two forms of spoken repetition in a girl with autism. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, 42, 427–444. https://doi.org/10.1080/13682820601183659
Strum, J. (2012). An enriched writers’ workshop for beginning writers with developmental disabilities. Topics in Language Disorders, 33, 335–360. https://doi.org/10.1097/TLD.0b013e318272609b
Twachtman-Cullen, D. (2014). Symbolic communication: Common pathways and points of departure. In K. D. Buron and P. Wolfberg (Eds.), Learners on the autism spectrum: Preparing highly qualified educators and related practitioners. (pp. 107–131). Shawnee Mission: AAPC Publishing.
Volkmar, F. R., and Klin, A. (1993). Social development in autism: Historical and clinical perspectives. In S. Baron-Cohen, H. Tager-Flusberg, and D. J. Coehn (Eds.), Understanding other minds: Perspectives from autism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01046103
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Vygotsky, L. (1986). Thought and language. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Yamamoto, J., and Miya, T. (1999). Acquisition and transfer of sentence construction in autistic students: Analysis by computer-based teaching. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 20(5), 355–377. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0891-4222(99)00017-7
