Reading Comprehension for Autistics: A Masterclass in Missing the Point
Mainstream educational research often claims to be comprehensive, thorough, and groundbreaking. But when you dive into papers like Chiang & Lin (2007) and Nguyen, Balsamo, & Garnett (2024), you start to wonder if these researchers are writing about the same autistic population as the rest of us. Imagine writing a manual for a car but forgetting to mention the engine—that’s essentially what these papers have done by neglecting Gestalt Language Processors (GLPs), a group that constitutes roughly 70% of the autistic population. It’s not just an oversight; it’s academic negligence wrapped in the guise of authority.
Chiang & Lin strutted in with their 2007 review as if they were delivering a holy grail of reading comprehension strategies, blissfully unaware that they were excluding the majority of autistic learners. Fast forward to 2024, and Nguyen et al. come along, repeating the same exclusionary mistakes, as if the last 40 years of research never happened. Their reviews aren’t just incomplete; they’re damaging. By perpetuating strategies that cater to only analytic processors, these papers fail to address the learning needs of the vast majority of autistic students. It’s time someone pulled back the curtain on this farce.
The Papers That Just Don’t Get It
Chiang & Lin (2007) present themselves as pioneers in reading comprehension instruction for autistic students, reviewing decades of literature like they’ve cracked the code on how best to teach the autistic brain. Their paper reeks of academic self-congratulation, as if their work is the definitive resource. But, in reality, they completely miss the mark. How? Well, they somehow manage to write a comprehensive review without even mentioning Gestalt Language Processors, who, again, for those in the back of the room, account for nearly 70% of the autistic population. It’s like penning a Shakespearean tragedy but skipping the part where everyone dies. The crucial element is missing, and without it, the entire narrative falls flat.
Fast forward to Nguyen et al. (2024), and we see the same pattern, just dressed up in slightly newer research jargon. They proudly stroll through 12 more years of studies as if to say, “Look how far we’ve come!” Spoiler alert: they haven’t. Despite two decades of supposedly cutting-edge autism research, they also fail to mention GLPs. It’s 2024, and yet these researchers can’t be bothered to account for a language processing style identified in the 1980s. Maybe they misplaced their time machine?
Both papers read like they’re on the cutting edge, but the fact that they overlook the majority of autistic learners proves otherwise. Their self-congratulatory tone, full of buzzwords and pseudo-innovative strategies, rings hollow when you realise that the most significant chunk of autistic learners isn’t even acknowledged. And here’s the kicker: by ignoring GLPs, these papers don’t just fail to offer meaningful solutions—they actively harm the conversation by continuing to reinforce interventions that simply don’t work for the majority of autistic students.
It’s beyond absurd that research so deeply entrenched in autism education continues to neglect GLPs as if they don’t exist. But the problem isn’t just ignorance; it’s arrogance. By pretending to be comprehensive, these authors perpetuate the myth that their strategies are the solution, when in fact, they’re creating even bigger problems for autistic learners in the classroom.
Gestalt Language Processors – Yes, We Exist!
Let’s get one thing straight: GLPs aren’t some new, exotic discovery. They’ve existed for as long as humans have been speaking, but apparently, mainstream researchers are still living in denial. As you know, we GLPs process language in chunks or scripts—whole phrases and ideas are absorbed as units, rather than being painstakingly broken down into individual words or sounds. Think of it like taking in a whole painting at once instead of dissecting each brushstroke. This method of processing is not only real, but it’s also common among autistic individuals—making up nearly 70% of the autistic population. And yet, papers like Chiang & Lin (2007) and Nguyen et al. (2024) manage to blunder their way through discussions of autism and language without so much as a nod to this massive group. Bravo.
To add insult to injury, it’s not as if the research on GLPs is new. We’ve had folks like Barry Prizant digging into this since the 1980s, and Marge Blanc’s Natural Language Acquisition model has been building on it for years. Oh, and let’s not forget my own contribution with Holistic Language Instruction, which was born out of my own experience as an autistic GLP. Want to know why I graduated from high school functionally illiterate? It’s because garbage like this was treated as gospel—completely missing how people like me process language. That’s exactly why writing my book was necessary: to fill in the gaps left by so-called “experts” who couldn’t be bothered to look beyond their narrow analytic lens.
Honestly, it makes you wonder where these researchers have been all this time. Under a rock? Because the rest of us have been doing the real work for decades.
The Harmful Effects of Ignoring GLPs
When research ignores GLPs, the damage doesn’t stop at the pages of the journal. It trickles down into classrooms where autistic students are subjected to interventions that fundamentally don’t work for them. Picture it: teachers, armed with these “comprehensive” studies, roll out reading comprehension strategies designed for analytical learners, blissfully unaware that nearly 70% of their autistic students process language in an entirely different way. The result? Frustrated students, frustrated teachers, and a system that claims to be inclusive while failing the very people it's meant to support.
The absurdity of this situation is hard to overstate. It’s like publishing a medical paper on “comprehensive cold treatments” that never once mentions the nose. You’d laugh if it weren’t so damaging. These interventions—built on the backs of research that continues to ignore GLPs—aren’t just ineffective; they’re harmful. They leave autistic students like me struggling to fit into boxes that were never designed for us in the first place. I know firsthand how these misguided approaches can cripple a person’s development. By the time I graduated high school, I was functionally illiterate. Why? Because the system kept handing me solutions based on the research of people like Chiang & Lin (2007) and Nguyen et al. (2024), who think that if they don’t talk about GLPs, they don’t exist. Spoiler alert: we do, and the harm caused by ignoring us is very real.
This isn’t just lazy scholarship; it’s actively contributing to the marginalisation of GLPs in classrooms across the country. These papers pay lip service to neurodiversity while reinforcing the dominance of analytic learning models that simply don’t work for most autistic students. The ignorance here is staggering.
So, what should these papers have done? For starters, a real comprehensive review of reading comprehension strategies for autistic learners would actually acknowledge the existence of GLPs. Groundbreaking, I know. Instead of sticking their heads in the sand, these “researchers” should have mentioned the extensive body of research dating back to the 1980s—work that has shown how GLPs process language holistically rather than dissecting individual words and sounds like their analytic counterparts. The fact that these papers don’t even nod to this approach is mind-boggling. How can you possibly trust a source on special education or literacy when it’s clear they have no idea that GLPs even exist?
A comprehensive review would not only mention GLPs but propose practical strategies that cater to their learning needs. Techniques like Marge Blanc’s Natural Language Acquisition model provide a road map for how to support holistic learners in developing reading comprehension skills. But of course, including such strategies would mean admitting that their previous methods only work for a narrow slice of the autistic population—something these researchers seem unwilling to do.
What’s even more galling is the arrogance with which these papers are written. These “researchers” present themselves as authorities on the subject, oblivious to the fact that they’ve overlooked a significant body of work. It’s like they’ve written the definitive guide to reading comprehension for autistic students, except, oops, they missed most of the students. The sheer nerve of pretending to offer a comprehensive solution when you haven’t even done the reading on the biggest piece of the puzzle is astounding.
Honestly, these “researchers” could use a remedial reading course themselves. Ignorance might be not knowing what you don’t know, but in this case, it’s willful ignorance. They chose not to explore a decades-old, well-established body of research on GLPs because it didn’t fit their narrow analytic framework. And in doing so, they’ve made the world that much harder for autistic students and the educators trying to support them.
The Path Forward – Listen to the Right People
It’s time for some accountability in autism research. The exclusion of GLPs in “mainstream” papers isn’t just an academic oversight—it’s an act of intellectual arrogance. Academia loves to pat itself on the back for being progressive and inclusive, but when it comes to actually listening to neurodiverse perspectives, it’s like shouting into a void. GLPs make up nearly 70% of the autistic population, yet mainstream researchers continue to treat them like some obscure footnote, if they’re even acknowledged at all.
Let’s be clear: this mess is fixable, but only if researchers start doing the work. Step one? Stop pretending that analytic learning models are the be-all and end-all for autistic students. It’s 2024—how about we embrace alternative learning models, like the Natural Language Acquisition model, that actually cater to GLPs? Step two: Include GLPs in your research. You know, the way a truly comprehensive review would. And step three: Here’s a wild thought—actually read the work from the past 40 years. Prizant, Blanc, myself, and others have been shouting into the wind about this for decades, and it’s high time mainstream academia caught up.
The arrogance of academia lies in its refusal to listen to the people who are most affected by their work—autistic individuals and the educators who work with them. Instead of consulting us, they continue to churn out “definitive” papers that miss the mark entirely. Maybe next time, Chiang, Lin, Nguyen, Balsamo, and Garnett will actually read the room. Or at least the research. Because until that happens, we’re stuck with harmful, outdated models that keep setting up autistic students for failure. And the world, quite frankly, doesn’t need any more of that.
Final thoughts …
To wrap it all up, the “researchers” might fancy themselves as authoritative voices on reading comprehension for autistic students, but their glaring omission of GLPs tells a different story. By ignoring decades of research from the last 40 years, and even my own book, Holistic Language Instruction, they perpetuate harmful interventions that simply don’t work for the vast majority of autistic learners. Their self-proclaimed “comprehensive” reviews fall flat, and the real-world consequences are felt every day in classrooms where students like me are left to flounder with methods designed for a different kind of brain.
Until mainstream researchers pull their heads out of the sand and catch up with the times, autistic students will continue to suffer. Maybe it’s time these scholars go back to school themselves—this time with a curriculum designed by people with lived experience - actual autistic GLPs who’ve made it out of that dungeon designed by the people who peddle such garbage. Because if anyone needs a lesson in comprehensive education, it’s them.