Eye Movement Study On Repeated Picture Book Reading Of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder

Repeated picture book reading has been proven to be an effective intervention strategy to improve the reading comprehension of children with autism spectrum disorder(ASD),while the cognitive process remains to be explored.Based on this background,eye-tracking technology was used in this study to explore the effect of repeated picture book reading on the fixation of text,illustrations,and each area of illustrations of children with ASD and typically developing(TD)peers via two experiments.Vocabulary acquisition and story comprehension were incorporated to verify the efficacy of eye movement fixation.The similarities and differences of repeated picture book reading rules between children with ASD and TD were compared and analyzed to explore the optimal number.The conclusions are as follows:Firstly,during repeated picture book reading,children with ASD paid less attention to the text area and mainly focused on the illustrations area,while they mainly focused on the character in the illustrations area and paid less attention to the background.Secondly,repeated picture book reading had a significant effect on the eye movement fixation of children with ASD.With the number of repeated reading increased,children with ASD showed increased fixation on the text area and decreased fixation on the illustrations area,which was mainly reflected in the decrease of the character area.Thirdly,the eye movement pattern of repeated picture book reading for children with ASD was the same as that of TD peers.But in the first three readings,the fixation on the illustrations area of children with ASD was less than that of TD peers,which was mainly reflected in the character area.After repeated reading three times,the gap was narrowed to insignificant.Fourthly,repeated picture book reading five times can effectively help children with ASD acquire vocabulary.And children with ASD have more advantages in vocabulary breadth acquisition compared to TD peers.Fifthly,repeated picture book reading five times can effectively improve story comprehension for children with ASD and narrow the gap with TD peers.Children with ASD need repeated reading more than TD peers.Sixthly,overall,the optimal number of repeated picture book reading for children with ASD is three to five times.Based on the findings,recommendations were made to parents and teachers: First,we should pay attention to the repeated picture book reading for children with ASD.Second,it is best to read picture books three to five times.Finally,children with ASD can be guided to focus on the character area during repeated reading in conjunction with other reading strategies to improve story comprehension.