Parent-Implemented Shared Book Reading Intervention for Preschoolers on the Autism Spectrum 

An 8-week intervention program 

This intervention program is intended for parents and their preschool children on the spectrum. The intervention uses a coaching model and comprises a training session, four home visits, and four follow-up phone calls. The aims of this program are to: 1) increase parents' use of book-related strategies that are known to facilitate early language and literacy skills (including vocabulary and story structure); 2) facilitate children's verbal engagement during shared book reading activities. 

This intervention was described in the following publication (open access): 

Westerveld MF, Wicks R, Paynter J. Investigating the effectiveness of parent-implemented shared book reading intervention for preschoolers with ASD. Child Language Teaching and Therapy. 2021;37(2):149-162. doi:10.1177/0265659021995522

You can download the full program handbook below. The handbook includes links to the materials we used during the intervention. The program overview button links to a 5-min video overview.

Personal Narrative Intervention for School-age children with Down Syndrome

A 7-week intervention program

This intervention program was designed by A/Prof Marleen Westerveld and Dr Anne van Bysterveldt as part of a research project (2017). The results were published:

Westerveld, M. F., & van Bysterveldt, A. K. (2022). Personal narrative intervention for school-age children with Down syndrome: A focus on macrostructure. Child Language Teaching and Therapy. https://doi.org/10.1177/02656590221080306 and a full copy of the paper is available through the link below.

There is no one-size-fits all approach to intervention. We strongly recommend you read the paper and adapt the program to suit individual children’s needs.  

Photo Bank - Personal Narratives.

Please feel free to download these photos - generously made available by friends and family - for use in intervention targeting personal narratives, including the program we implemented with children with Down syndrome. The photos simply depict children engaging in everyday activities.

(If you would like to contribute your photos, please contact me using the website contact form :)

Reading Success in the Primary Years: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Guide Assessment and Intervention

Marleen Westerveld, Rebecca Armstrong, Georgina Barton

Chapter 5: Intervention initiatives across three levels of instruction (download for Free)

This chapter describes four evidence-based intervention initiatives at three levels of instruction (whole class, small group, and individual): (a) Robust Vocabulary Instruction was provided in Year 5 classrooms by the classroom teachers with support from the speech pathologist; (b) small-group intervention targeting expository structure was provided by the speech pathologist to Year 5 students demonstrating specific weaknesses in comprehension; (c) individual students participated in a specific training programme targeting orthographic knowledge, using a commercially available app, as well as phonological processing skills, using the LiPS programme; and (d) all foundation year classes participated in Read It Again—FoundationQ!, a supplementary whole-class oral language and emergent literacy intervention implemented by classroom teachers with coaching from the school-based speech pathologist. Results from all four intervention trials were positive and highlighted the importance of targeting specific areas of weaknesses in spoken or written language skills, based on the speech-to-print profile, to facilitate improvement in reading comprehension skills. Moreover, the importance of whole-class intervention during the learning to read stage was shown, with the cohort who received Read It Again performing better than the cohort who did not.

We have created a brief 5 min overview: Reading Success Intro

Oral Narrative Structure Intervention (Westerveld & Gillon, 2007)

A 6-week intervention program for school-age children with oral narrative comprehension difficulties

This intervention program is intended for young school-age children who demonstrate poor oral narrative comprehension skills, as indicated by their performance on a story comprehension task. The program aims: 1) to increase knowledge of text structure in fictional stories; and 2) to apply this knowledge to re/telling fictional stories. The program is designed to be implemented by a speech-language therapist (SLT) in 2 one-hour sessions per week, over a 6-week period. The intervention systematically and explicitly introduces 7 story grammar elements: Characters, Setting, Problem, Goal/Plan, Attempts, Resolution, and Ending. Each session builds on knowledge gained from the previous session. Although the program was used with small groups of children (3-4), it is also reported to be suitable for one-on-one client sessions, as well as group settings. Formal evaluation of the program indicated significant improvement in children’s understanding of story grammar following the intervention.

This intervention was described in the following publications: 

• Westerveld, M., & Gillon, G. (2008). Oral narrative intervention for children with mixed reading disability. Child Language Teaching & Therapy, 24(1), 31-54. doi: 10.1177/0265659007084567

• Westerveld, M. F., & Gillon, G. T. (2008). Story structure intervention for a child with mixed reading disability: A developmental case study. New Zealand Journal of Speech - Language Therapy, 63, 45-56.