Habilidade de leitura em alunos com TEA da rede pública de ensino do município de Curitiba/PR

Considering that learning reading skills has significant functions in the lives of individuals, these skills were investigated among students with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) enrolled in Elementary School I in public schools in Curitiba. Participated in the cross-sectional exploratory research 40 children (8 to 12 years old) and their respective parents or caretakers. The inclusion criteria were: diagnosis of ASD registered at the school and confirmed by the ABC scale, school attendance of at least 70% of school days, and use of afterschool resource room. The students were assessed using the Reading Process Assessment Test (PROLEC) and the parents answered a questionnaire to characterize the child and the family. The results confirm that children with ASD have difficulties in developing reading skills. In all school years students had below-average scores in comparison with children with normal reading skills, especially on tests that required text comprehension. This suggests that students with ASD develop the memorization of letters and words more easily than the comprehension of their meanings, as well as the meanings of sentences composed with those words. However, some students achieved results similar to the test normative sample, especially the older ones. Socioeconomic status had no effect on the results. The difficulties in the development of reading skills presented by children with ASD indicate the need for teachers' pedagogical organization to favor individual skills and competences.