Eric.ed.gov – Intensive Intervention Practice Guide: Explicit Instruction in Reading Comprehension for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder

The National Center for Leadership in Intensive Intervention (NCLII), a consortium funded by the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), prepares special education leaders to become experts in research on intensive intervention for students with disabilities who have persistent and severe academic (e.g., reading and math) and behavioral difficulties. By the end of the first year of their program, scholars in each cohort work in cross-institutional collaborative groups to create an Intensive Intervention Practice Guide. In each guide, scholars identify an approach to intensive intervention for a select population of students with disabilities, describe the existing evidence base behind it, and discuss the next steps in research needed to improve the understanding of designing and delivering the intervention. The “Intensive Intervention Practice Guides” are created for practitioners as well as faculty engaged in instructing pre- and in-service teachers. In this “Intensive Intervention Practice Guide,” the authors evaluate the effectiveness of explicit instruction for teaching reading comprehension to students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Explicit instruction is a model for teaching that utilizes thorough and carefully planned lessons in which the instructor clearly outlines learning goals and implements structured lessons with the aim of student mastery of distinct, sequential learning objectives (Archer & Hughes 2011). Broad learning goals are broken apart into smaller objectives (i.e., skills) required for mastery of the goal, and each objective is targeted individually. The philosophy of explicit instruction is that teaching should be clear and free of misunderstandings in order to quickly accelerate student learning. During explicit instruction, the teacher models the desired skill, provides opportunities for practice, gives feedback during each step, and assesses whether or not re-teaching is needed. This practice guide provides a list of resources for learning additional information related to explicit instruction for teaching academic skills.