During the past two years a number of behavioral practitioners have begun using Teach Your Children to Read Well with clients who are diagnosed with autism. They have been reporting consistent success using our programs to teach these clients to read. To this point, Dr. Joel Hundert, a professor at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario has had the most experience with autism spectrum clients and our programs.

Dr. Hundert and his staff at the Behavior Institute, in Hamilton and Toronto, have noted that a high number of repetitions may be required in the early lessons as the student learns to learn the formats involved in the programs. They have also added several practice routines to the program specifically for their clients. Michael Fabrizio and Allison Moors are currently field-testing the program with some of their autistic clients in the Seattle area. We expect to have data on the results of these efforts in all three locations in the near future. If you are working with autistic spectrum clients who already have language skills, you may wish to consider our programs as a way to successfully teach them to read. Unless the client has reasonable language skills, we recommend that the focus be placed on teaching language skills using Siegfried Engelmann's Language for Learning series, a Direct Instruction, Behaviour Management and Precision TeachingDirect Instruction language program published by McGraw-Hill.

One teacher expresses gratitude: "The thanks goes to you! This curriculum is a God send. Nothing has worked previously... Michael, there are many children with Autism Spectrum Disorder who will benefit hugely academically (& what said functionally) from your workbooks. The U.S. presently has an epidemic number of children with ASD and parents are desperately searching for a way (that works) to provide them an education... so the sooner you get the word out the better for each of the children. They need to be providing this curriculum in all public MH, DH & LD classrooms (actually, in ALL elementary classrooms). The president should make it a requirement along with his No Child Left Behind theme because this curriculum leaves no child behind!

All I can say is WOW! & thank you."

Michael assists autistic children around the globe:

In November of 2008, Michael Maloney was asked to assist The Hong Kong Junior School to establish an educational program for children on the autism spectrum. Presently seven young boys are enrolled in the program. They have are being taught language skills using the Language for Learning, Direct Instruction, program. Additional exercises have been created for various tracks within the language program so that Precision Teaching measures of language skills can be collected daily. The instructors teach these students reading, math and spelling skills using the Teach Your Children Well texts and software.

Although the project is still in its beginning stage, present data indicates progress by all seven students in most if not all subject areas. After five months, two students had completed the first level of The Teach Your Children to Read Well series and showed reading gains of 2 full years.