Marco Cancino<\/strong> Nedjelka Tomicic<\/strong> Developing second\/foreign language (L2) comprehension skills can represent a challenging endeavor for learners with autism spectrum condition (ASC) because their social and verbal cognition may be impaired in terms of abstract reasoning, organizing, and retelling events, inferring intentions, and identifying emotions contained in a text. Thus, it becomes relevant to explore how these learners experience metacognitive strategies when reading in a foreign language. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore how Chilean elementary learners with ASC perceive their metacognitive awareness and how they strategize their L2 reading. To this end, 27 elementary learners with ASC were asked to report on their perceptions of metacognition in L2 reading by means of a metacognitive awareness reading strategy inventory and semi-structured interviews. Findings revealed that participants displayed a medium level of awareness toward metacognition, with problem-solving strategies being the most frequently reported. The difficulties faced by these learners were related to an excessive focus on details rather than general ideas, concentration issues, avoidance of multitasking processes in reading, and not seeking help to ensure comprehension. Implications are discussed in terms of cognitive approaches to reading comprehension and the pedagogical need for nurturing a strategic approach to metacognition in L2 reading to increase autonomy and automaticity.<\/p>\n Keywords<\/em><\/strong>: autism spectrum condition, L2 reading awareness, metacognitive skills, English language learning<\/p>\n <\/a> There is a lack of studies addressing L2 reading metacognition in students with ASC, which calls for a better understanding of how learners with ASC could use metacognitive strategies and increase awareness of their own cognitive processes. Therefore, the purpose of the present study is to explore how young Chilean learners with ASC perceive their metacognitive awareness and how they strategize their L2 reading. The research questions that guided the study were as follows:<\/p>\n The term \u201cmetacognition\u201d was coined by Flavell (1976) to refer to an individual\u2019s conscious ability to understand, control, and regulate his or her own cognitive processes to enhance learning. In other words, while cognition is necessary to perform a task\u2014e.g., complete a reading task by translating, applying grammar rules, and guessing meaning from contexts (Khezrlou, 2012)\u2014metacognition is essential for understanding how the task was performed (Garner, 1987). According to most authors in the field (Efklides, 2008; Jacobs & Paris, 1987), there are two main dimensions rooted in metacognition: Metacognitive knowledge (i.e., the knowledge of cognition), and metacognitive regulation (i.e., the regulation of cognitive processes). Metacognitive knowledge entails three broad subcategories: Declarative knowledge (what a learner knows), procedural knowledge (how the learner uses what she\/he knows), and conditional knowledge (when and why a learner uses specific strategies). Metacognitive regulation encompasses planning (selecting the most suitable strategies to perform a task, activating previous knowledge, and setting goals), monitoring (controlling progress, checking, and modifying plans and strategies), and evaluation (assessing the ongoing process). Consequently, reading before activities (planning), checking one\u2019s learning progress (monitoring), and reflecting on the strategies being used (evaluating) are actions that can be taken to enhance L2 reading (Anderson, 2008). L2 readers make use of metacognitive knowledge and awareness to apply strategies to reading tasks, which will advance their L2 literacy (Li & Wang, 2010). Metacognitive strategies are crucial for achieving reading comprehension and promoting learners\u2019 autonomy when reading (Khezrlou, 2012) but they need to be developed in learners. Once learners are trained to use and manage these strategies, they will likely require less effort and their use will become more automatic. Afflerbach et al. (2008) emphasized the difference between reading strategy and reading skill. While the former is related to the reader\u2019s deliberate process of controlling and directing their efforts when reading a text, the latter entails automatic operations that result in reading efficiently and fluently without the reader\u2019s awareness. The more the learner consciously practices with strategies, the more skillful at reading they become. In this respect, evidence from research has suggested that adequate training on reading strategies can help learners become fluent and skilled L2 readers (Zhang et al., 2014).<\/p>\n Autism spectrum condition (ASC) is a neurological developmental condition of the brain. It exists within a spectrum, so it has variable manifestations across the lifespan, gender, intellectual level, and language ability (Happ\u00e9, 2011). Still, these diverse manifestations may share common elements, as individuals with ASC typically face challenges regarding social interaction, restrictive activities, and repetitive behavior (Rosello et al., 2020). Moreover, individuals with ASC may experience sensory processing difficulties concerning sound, vision, touch, taste, and smell, which include hypersensitivity, hyposensitivity, and general sensory overload (O\u2019Neill & Jones, 1997). This may prompt individuals with ASC to resort to \u201cstimming\u201d (repetitive movements or sounds) as a form of self-regulation when feeling overwhelmed by certain stimuli.<\/p>\n Language ability has been linked to reading comprehension in neurotypical children as well as learners with ASC. Word reading and oral language abilities have predicted reading comprehension in ASC children who display average and above-average nonverbal cognition (Davidson et al., 2018; McIntyre et al., 2017). Moreover, the variability in the reading profiles of ASC children regarding word recognition and decoding skills and their relationship with reading comprehension has been documented in the literature (Henderson et al., 2014). Meta-analyses have reported that semantic knowledge (based on receptive vocabulary) and decoding skills (assessed by means of nonword\/single word tests and sentence reading accuracy and reading rate) can predict reading comprehension (Brown et al., 2013), in line with a simple view of reading proposing that \u201csuccessful reading comprehension depends upon proficient word-level decoding and linguistic comprehension\u201d (Henderson et al., 2014, p. 780).<\/p>\n From a cognitive perspective, learners with ASC exhibit comprehension issues that are related to language processing, communicative output, and repetitive behavior (Williamson et al., 2012). More specifically, there are three cognitive factors that may explain the deficit in their reading comprehension abilities. First, the Theory of Mind, put forward by Baron-Cohen (1989, 2001), established that identifying and understanding behaviors are key cognitive skills to understanding one\u2019s mental states and the mental states of others, as they allow individuals to make predictions regarding others. In individuals with ASC there is a deficit in this regard, as intentional communication, pretend play, inferring others\u2019 emotions and beliefs, and differentiating facts from fiction are behaviors that are typically underdeveloped. The development of the Theory of Mind involves an emerging linguistic sophistication that can be evidenced by mastery of complement sentences such as \u201cJohn said\/thought that aliens landed in his backyard,\u201d and the explicit reasoning between beliefs and reality (Durrleman et al., 2017, p. 2). A lack of such mastery in ASC children results in difficulties regarding a range of reading comprehension tasks, which includes recognizing and understanding emotions, incorporating pragmatic language skills, determining characters\u2019 goals in stories, recognizing false beliefs, and understanding trickery (Westby, 2004).<\/p>\n The second factor that can explain reading comprehension issues in learners with ASC is the weak central coherence hypothesis, which states that individuals with ASC may fail to integrate detail into a global perspective (Quill & Stansberry, 2017), likely paying more attention to the parts rather than the whole; therefore, they display remarkable visual-spatial skills and process information better in a visual way than in other formats. Weak central coherence is associated with difficulties in integrating background knowledge to facilitate text comprehension, a crucial factor in achieving metacognition (Wahlberg & Magliano, 2004).<\/p>\n Finally, a third factor that explains the deficit in individuals with ASC is related to executive functions. A deficit in executive functions, as Pennington and Ozonoff (1996) stated, signifies a struggle to complete complex tasks such as organizing actions or events, following multi-step directions, planning, and combining information from several sources to solve a problem. Impaired metacognitive monitoring abilities (the ability to correctly represent one\u2019s own mental state) might play a role in these processes. Grainger et al. (2016) found that these abilities are significantly reduced in learners with ASC and that although executive control processes are not impaired, these learners display reduced accuracy in their judgments of confidence (a task involving metamemory monitoring and control processes) and use monitoring to oversee executive control processes less frequently than neurotypical children. It must be noted that while we acknowledge that reading comprehension in learners with ASC may be affected by many linguistic and cognitive components (Davidson, 2021) and that not every ASC individual will display the full range of difficulties identified by the Theory of Mind, weak central coherence, and executive function issues, it is relevant to consider these cognitive aspects when designing interventions, accommodating strategies, and choosing instructional practices that match students\u2019 needs. This approach will likely result in better comprehension outcomes (Chang et al., 2020).<\/p>\n Evidence has indicated that aspects related to the Theory of Mind and central coherence such as perspective taking, making inferences, relating to past experiences, finding context clues, and generalizing to other contexts can influence reading comprehension processes in learners with ASC (Carnahan et al., 2011). These skills are crucial for text comprehension and require the use of social knowledge and direct instruction. Since learners with ASC may encounter difficulties in learning rules and strategies as well as breaking down information (Goldstein et al., 2001), they can navigate these difficulties by adopting problem-solving strategies such as re-reading (Howard et al., 2017). Another aspect to consider is the challenges that individuals with ASC face regarding organization and coherence. In this respect, Diehl et al. (2006) found that when ASC children were asked to retell a story in their own words, they preserved the order of events in the story but with no reference to causal explanations in it. Furthermore, learners with ASC may present challenges in understanding non-literal language in texts (Suh et al., 2014).<\/p>\n With respect to metacognitive development in reading, several studies have suggested that individuals with ASC display a deficit (Brosnan et al., 2015; Grainger et al., 2016). Nguyen et al. (2015) argue that in order to enhance the comprehension and metacognitive processes of learners with ASC effectively, they require visual, concrete materials, and questions that are brief and straightforward. The authors go on to identify a series of steps that can be followed to help learners with ASC through the reading process. These steps include pre-reading, while-reading, and post-reading activities, providing access to prior knowledge, making connections between ideas, engaging in congruent discussions, and summarizing the understanding of a given text. Indeed, a strategic approach to reading can provide learners with ASC with a clear orientation to accomplish the task (Asaro-Saddler & Saddler, 2010). In this respect, Rebolledo et al. (2021) assessed reading comprehension, meta-comprehension skills, motivation for reading, and strategy use in 41 Chilean high school students with ASC. The performance of learners with ASC was compared with neurotypical learners\u2019 questionnaire scores in those variables, and a think-aloud protocol was carried out to characterize the strategies reported. Results suggested that learners with ASC performed as well as neurotypical students in reading comprehension measures but displayed poor performance in the pragmatic aspects of reading, such as recognizing the characters, acknowledging their social, cultural, and historical context, and understanding the social functions that were embedded in the text. Metacognitive comprehension, motivation for reading, and the use of comprehension strategies were found to be significant predictors of reading performance. However, low-level strategies (i.e., paraphrasing) were more prominent in the reported strategies of these Learners with ASC.<\/p>\n Regarding L2 reading development in learners with ASC, most studies have addressed how ASC can affect bilingual language learning\u2014that is, the performance of learners who are exposed to more than one language from a very early age. The literature suggests that bilingualism does not seem to negatively impact language development for children with ASC (Drysdale et al., 2015) and that encouraging the use of more than one language by the parents can facilitate opportunities for sharing meaning in communication (Soto & Yu, 2014). In an English L2 context, Barletta (2018) reported a case study of a six-year-old child with high-functioning autism learning English upon arrival in the U.S. Through observations and recorded tutorial sessions, the author found that the child\u2019s language development was very similar to the phases that typically developing children go through, but that some autistic features (impaired social interaction skills) hindered L2 learning. The author also reported metalinguistic awareness (by means of L1 comments about salient linguistic features) and heightened interest in details displayed by the learner, behaviors that are in line with the weak central coherence model. The intense focus on salient features has been shown to help learners with ASC to learn new words by means of L2 teaching approaches focused on total physical response, which requires learners to repeat the words verbally and in action (Sari et al., 2021). In sum, the findings discussed in this section highlight the relevance of metacognitive approaches in L2 reading comprehension, and the need to document learners with ASC perceptions toward metacognitive awareness in L2 reading settings.<\/p>\n This exploratory study aimed to gather the perceptions of the metacognition of students with ASC in L2 reading. To this end, a mixed-methods sequential explanatory design was selected, which is characterized by the collection and analysis of quantitative data in a first phase, followed by the collection and analysis of qualitative data that builds on the results of the previous stage (Creswell & Creswell, 2017). Thus, the metacognitive awareness of 27 learners with ASC was quantitatively measured by means of an adapted survey\u2014the revised Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI-R)\u2014developed by Mokhtari et al. (2018). Then, semi-structured interviews conducted with 11 participants provided a deeper qualitative exploration of their attitudes and perceptions toward L2 metacognitive reading. The main objectives of the study were outlined in the research questions: to describe the perceived use of metacognitive strategies of learners with ASC when reading texts in L2, and to explore specific difficulties that these learners encountered when reading in L2.<\/p>\n Twenty-seven ASC children (21 males and 6 females aged 9-14 years old) participated in the study. The participants attended public and private elementary educational institutions in several cities in Chile, some of which implemented special education needs programs in their curricula. The participants\u2019 parents were contacted through several formal and informal ASC organizations in social media, following a convenience sampling approach to data collection. Most of the participants\u2019 parents reported receiving support from specialists, such as psychological therapy, pedagogical support, and occupational therapy support. All the participants\u2019 parents reported that their children had level 1 autism, which was diagnosed with tools such as ADOS, WISC-III, and M-CHAT. Eleven participants reported other diagnoses linked to ASC, such as attention deficit disorder, sleep disorder, and mixed anxiety-depressive disorder. None of the participants reported taking part in metacognitive strategy training courses prior to data collection.<\/p>\n In order to provide a measure of control for reading comprehension skills, the Step 1 section of the TOEFL Primary Test (Educational Testing Service, 2019) assessing reading comprehension for ages 8 and above was administered to the participants. The test contains 36 multiple-choice items assessing recognition of simple vocabulary, understanding short descriptions and formulaic expressions, and finding information in signs, forms, and schedules (Baron & Papageorgiou, 2014). Out of a group of 31 participants, 27 participants obtained scores within 1 standard deviation from the mean (M<\/em> = 33.62; SD<\/em> = 2.26) and were thus included in the study sample. The high mean score revealed that these participants\u2019 performance reached a reading comprehension level of A2 according to the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR; Council of Europe, 2001), and were able to understand short descriptions and messages, locate information contained in signs, and infer information (e.g., unfamiliar words) from longer sentences.<\/p>\n Table 1 displays the background information of the 11 participants (with pseudonyms) that were randomly selected for the interview process, including age, reported associated diagnoses, type of diagnostic tool used, type of educational institution attended, and their level of metacognitive awareness in L2 reading based on the MARSI-R.<\/p>\n Table 1. Interview Participants\u2019 Information.<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nUniversidad Andres Bello, Chile
\n<marco.cancino![\"atmark\"](\"http:\/\/www.tesl-ej.org\/atmark.png\")
unab.cl><\/p>\n
\nUniversidad Andres Bello, Chile
\n<n.tomiciccamposuandresbello.edu><\/p>\nAbstract<\/h3>\n
\nDeveloping reading comprehension skills is crucial for accessing information and acquiring vocabulary (Grabe, 2009). However, it can represent a challenging endeavor for learners with autism spectrum condition (ASC)[1<\/a>]<\/sup>, as they require specific, systematic, and sustained support throughout their schooling. These learners generally display significant difficulties with social interaction and verbal communication, often focusing on very specific interests and details (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Several studies have addressed how metacognition unfolds among learners with ASC and have reported first language (L1) reading comprehension difficulties in these individuals (Brosnan et al., 2015; Grainger et al., 2014; Nation et al., 2006). More specifically, learners with ASC have been found to struggle often with aspects of reading comprehension such as abstract reasoning, organizing, and retelling events, inferring intentions, and identifying emotions contained in a text (Randi et al., 2010). In the Chilean educational system, there are no databases that provide an accurate number of individuals with ASC (Toledo & Basulto, 2020). As of 2018, the number of students with ASC enrolled in educational institutions in Chile was 1838, representing 1% of the total number of students with special needs (Ministerio de Educaci\u00f3n Chile, 2018).<\/p>\n\n
Literature Review<\/h3>\n
Metacognitive Processes in Language Learning<\/h4>\n
Autism Spectrum Condition and Reading Comprehension: A Cognitive Perspective<\/h4>\n
Studies Addressing learners with ASC and Reading Comprehension<\/h4>\n
Methodology<\/h3>\n
Participants and Context<\/h4>\n
![](\"https:\/\/tesl-ej.org\/ej104\/a12pix\/image1.png\")