Model Teachers or Model Students? A Comparison of Video Modelling Interventions for Improving Reading Fluency and Comprehension in Children with Autism.
Rachael Egarr, Catherine Storey
PMID 34328612WHAT IT FOUND
Feedforward video self-modelling improved reading speed for two of four children with autism, while teacher-modelled video helped one child.
Neither intervention consistently improved comprehension, and results varied widely by individual.
Key findings
01Two of four participants improved reading fluency with feedforward video self-modelling, but the other two did not benefit from either intervention.
02Teacher-modelled video was ineffective for most participants, with three out of four showing reduced fluency compared to baseline.
03There was no consistent link between improved fluency and better comprehension; one participant had higher fluency but zero correct comprehension answers.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Only four participants were studied, and positive effects were only seen in half of them. The alternating treatments design may have caused interference between the two video conditions, making it hard to isolate the effect of each. Text difficulty and length varied between sessions, which influenced reading speed independently of the intervention. Comprehension was measured with multiple-choice questions, which may not accurately reflect true understanding of the text. Adam experienced a seizure and illness during the trial, which likely confounded his results. The study did not control for prior reading interventions or neuropsychological profiles beyond diagnosis.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that improving reading speed with video self-modelling will automatically improve reading comprehension. In this study, fluency gains were inconsistent and did not reliably predict better understanding of the text.