Browsing a library with your young one can be a meaningful experience, especially if you love reading yourself. However, some kids are less interested when they come across regular books full of text. In this post, I’m sharing 8 benefits of adaptive books for children with ASD.
If you notice your child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experiencing the same, fear no more. The benefits of adaptive books are here to change things up.
Adaptive Books for Autism
Adaptive books are reading materials to accommodate people with disabilities. One of the most popular variations of these booklets is pages embossed with braille text to assist those with visual impairments. Books for children with ASD usually feature different sensory elements.
It’s a common misconception that autism makes it impossible to engage in reading. Up to 14% of children with ASD have hyperlexia, a condition when a child begins reading earlier despite their expected ability. For those who may not pick up reading right away, adaptive books can improve the reading experience and provide so much more.
What Are the Benefits of Adaptive Books?
Adaptive books come in all shapes and sizes. Luckily, each one has the same benefits for aiding your kid in reading and learning.
1. Promote Literacy Skills
Reading comprehension is a crucial building block to learning speaking and writing. Those literacy skills are necessary throughout school and even extracurricular activities. They’re even necessary beyond graduation. Adaptive books ensure your kid has the right foundation for the future.
2. Understand Different Topics
The beauty behind books is that they can make all kinds of information easier to digest. Adaptive books are a gateway for children with ASD to explore different lessons. For example, if you want to teach your kid about Abraham Lincoln, you can supplement a trip to Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park with adaptive learning material.
3. Curate a New Learning Experience
Creating a unique learning experience is one of the main benefits of adaptive books. Some mothers try to make a child adjust to the learning material when it should be the other way around. These materials accommodate different learning styles and encourage participation because of different inclusions. Here are a few examples:
- Illustrations: Most children with ASD need visuals to accommodate a book’s text and make it easier to understand. For example, if a sentence talks about biting an apple, having a picture of a person doing that action can help.
- Moving Images: Some digital adaptive books contain moving images to retain focus. For instance, seeing the biting motion can seem much more straightforward than a still picture. You can make your own storybook for your kid with different GIFs or short videos associated with the text.
- Interactive: While interactive books have their own genre, their elements can be used in adaptive learning. Allowing a kid to participate in the book’s creation, like filling in sentences, drawing a character or moving different objects, can be pretty stimulating.
- Textured Pages: Certain adjectives like soft or prickly can be challenging to grasp without the actual feeling. Allow children to experience the sensation with textured pages to make them internalize it quicker. For instance, add a piece of satin fabric to a page about ribbons.
- Sounds: Children with ASD may feel more inclined to absorb information if they receive it through auditory learning. Adaptive books can have stories with different sound effects to create an immersive reading experience for the kids. For example, hearing an actual lion’s roar can make the memory stick better.
4. Better Concentration
Adaptive books provide all kinds of elements to grab the attention of a child with ASD. Look at these pages as a training ground for improving their concentration in the future. If you want to take it to the next level, you can practice bringing them into the park and giving them their book. Being able to focus despite the stimuli present is an excellent skill to learn.
5. Ease of Use and Accessibility
Adaptive books are available if you search the right sections of Kentucky’s libraries. There are also digital versions or templates to download and give to your child, and they’re relatively straightforward to flip through and learn. If your child shows interest in a particular title, explore other related books.
6. Interest in Reading
It’s good to develop an interest as a child as it can fuel a passion for them in the future. Those interested in reading don’t have to let go of their fondness. Adaptive books can help them foster their love until they feel comfortable engaging in more text in the future. The extra elements that make a book unique can even spark an excitement for sounds or music.
7. Emotional Expression
Some kids just need time and resources before they learn to pick up on social cues or express themselves. A study created an augmented reality-adapted book for children with ASD. The resource has a learnability score of 82.73% and provides information on facial emotional expressions. Use these learning materials to convey basic feelings like happiness and sadness.
8. Discussion and Storytelling
After reading an adaptive book with your kid, ask them different questions about what you read together. What’s their favorite part of the story? Why do they think the book ended that way? Questioning if they enjoyed it or not can spark meaningful discussion.
Read Adaptive Books to Your Child
Everyone just needs a little help sometimes. Consider the benefits of adaptive books and getting one for your child with ASD. You can also make one yourself. The experience of creating one with a kid and having them read it can be memorable for mothers.
