Teaching phonics to groups of middle school students with autism, intellectual disabilities and complex communication needs.

For students who have severe and multiple disabilities including intellectual disability, complex communication needs, physical and/or sensory disabilities, and autism, there are many barriers to literacy acquisition. The purpose of this study was to teach letter-sound correspondence to small groups of students with significant intellectual disabilities and comorbid communication disorders using the ALL (Accessible Literacy Learning) curriculum. The eight participants in this study, who ranged in age from 11 to 16 years of age and had primary diagnoses of cerebral palsy, autism, Rett syndrome, Down syndrome, and intellectual disability, were placed into four groups for instruction in phonics.