Reading Skills and Background Noise in Autistic and Non-autistic Children: a Pilot Study.

Classrooms are often noisy environments, which can result in unfavorable learning conditions for students. However, research has insufficiently addressed how noisy classrooms affect autistic students. This preliminary study examined differences in, and the impact of, background noise on reading performance for elementary-aged autistic and non-autistic (NA) children (N = 49). Autistic (n = 13) and NA children (n = 36) between the ages of 6 and 13 years participated in the current study. We employed a repeated measures design where each participant read four, grade-appropriate reading curriculum-based measurement (CBM) passages and subsequently completed comprehension (i.e., retell and recall) tasks in the presence of four different listening conditions (i.e., experimental condition): (1) quiet, (2) a single talker, (3) classroom noise, and (4) white noise. Using multi-level modeling (MLM), we found that listening condition differentially impacted reading fluency for all children. Children's reading fluency was more negatively impacted by the single talker in comparison to white noise and quiet. The performance of all children to retell story components (a measure of reading comprehension) was moderated by age with older children recalling more story components in the presence of white noise. Recalling story components correctly was not impacted by listening condition or disability. Regardless of disability, environments that include a single talker were not optimal for children's reading fluency skills. Moreover, preferred environments for children's reading comprehension skills—specifically the retelling of key story components—depend on student age, with background white noise being ideal for older children. Notably, no differences in how background noise impacts reading performance were found between autistic and NA children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]