Exploring the effect of dialogic reading on children with autism spectrum disorder: Do siblings promote their language development?

Most educators engaged in dialogic reading (DR) are adults, whilst less attention is paid to the teaching effect of siblings on the language development of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This study, which included 1007 Chinese kindergarteners with ASD, aimed to examine the possible effects of siblings' DR involvement on the language development of ASD children in terms of receptive vocabulary, expressive vocabulary, character reading, listening comprehension and reading interest. After a 12-week intervention period, results revealed that, except listening comprehension, ASD children who read with their older siblings demonstrated greater improvements than when they read with their parents in terms of expressive vocabulary, character reading skills and reading interest. These findings demonstrated the positive effects of DR on the language development of ASD children and highlight the importance of involving siblings in home literacy activities to facilitate the language development of ASD children. The effects of gender dyads and age differences between educators and ASD children have also been discussed.