The START Project staff are identifying key characteristics impacting literacy for students with ASD and developing tools that may be helpful to supporting students. While students with ASD tend to demonstrate excellent word recognition and decoding skills, there are inherent challenges and impairment in the area of reading comprehension, often due to the fundamental characteristics of the disability. 

• Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Literacy: Resources to Assist in Literacy Development in Students with ASD
• Creating a Reading Profile
• Literacy PowerPoint
• Strategies for Improving Literacy for Students with ASD

The START Impact on Literacy Checklist for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD): The Top 10 is a tool developed as a checklist to identify key characteristics that impact reading comprehension in students with ASD. Within those characteristics, three sub deficit areas were identified explaining how the corresponding characteristic may impact reading literacy. Strategies were then identified corresponding with each of the ASD characteristics and sub deficit areas. The tool was designed to provide guidance on strategies that have demonstrated through current research to be useful interventions for specific characteristics of ASD. View the Literacy Checklist here.