Drawing a Blank: Improving Comprehension for Readers on the Autism Spectrum Paperback – January 16, 2015

Wow. We've all been waiting for this book for YEARS! It details nearly every imaginable problem a student with autism will have when trying to make sense of written material. In our large district even the highest functioning autistic students, including those with Aspergers, have an extremely low pass rate on NCLB mandated state tests by the time they reach high school. Any teacher who thinks their high functioning autistic students are doing just fine, should check out those results for a wake-up call. There is tons and tons of practical advise in this book for things to work on. Our language arts and special educators should use this book and really intesively focus on this very important issue that is an obstacle in the lives of students on the autism spectrum. The book tends to be most applicable to students with hyperlexia even though the issues apply to students that aren't hyperlexic. Also, undue emphasis is placed on a few "research" articles. The research for these articles is so poor and scant, one wonders why any weight is given to it. Despite this small critism, this book is great and a must have. I hope the author has a follow-up that gives parents and teachers more detailed information on how to prioritize issues and measure progress. We need that too!

This book is an important beginning as we start to pay attention to basic literacy instruction for people with Autism. Ms. Iland calls attention to the ticking time bomb of masses of "recovering" teens with Autism who can look you in the eye due to "success" of behavioral therapies, but will be unable to fill out a job application due to functional illiteracy.More professionals like Emily Iland who work with Autism literacy need to quickly pool experiences to find out which strategies work now and what is needed next.

This book should be called Autism 101. It has a wealth of information on autism and why these individuals struggle with reading comprehension, however, it lacked information on what to do about the problem. As a teacher, I was disappointed. I was looking for ways to help my students and there simply was not enough information to help me. I did get a couple of ideas that I can use, but most are things good special educators are already doing.

Emily Iland does a wonderful job in presenting the very real barriers to comprehension that are unique to AS readers, and in offering practical ways to work around these barriers. Her discussion of what is known about AS reading comprehension is remarkably lucid and she clearly has a great depth of experience with, and understanding of, people on the autism spectrum. I find her approach to be creative and inclusive, which is a benefit in any educational environment.

This is a very current and well written book on hyperlexia, a reading disability, which is somewhat unique to high functioning children on the autism spectrum. This is a great book for educators and practitioners in the field of autism but it is also most excellent for parents of young children high functioning autism and hyperlexia. As a current special educator in this area, I would very highly recommend reading it.

This book spells out what a teacher or parent needs to know and do to help a child with ASD develop appropriate comprehension skills. Loaded with excellent information, the perspective of a parent/researcher and it’s an easy read.

This book is full of useful information, especially for those unfamiliar with nature of Autism. However, I found there were not enough practical strategies to use with my students. For children with High Functioning Autism and Asperger Syndrome thesuggested work sheets were too simplistic.

This is a great book that reviews the literature and then gives practical ideas and suggestions for how to implement the strategies that are research-based. I have not found another resource that gives specific examples of how to implement the strategies.