Multimodal, digital composition for children with autism: Lessons on process, product, and assessment

Pandya, J.Z., Hansuvadha, N., & Pagdilao, K.C. (2016). Multimodal, digital composition for children with autism: Lessons on process, product, and assessment. Language Arts, 93(6), 415-429.


This is the story of how one child with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) was able to express herself through multimodal, digital composing. Through the use of technology, paired with a carefully scaffolded, strength-based approach, “Cindy” was able to show her strengths while also developing her verbal, motor, and social skills. While a case like Cindy’s accentuated the possibilities of such an approach, the benefits clearly could be extended to all learners.

The most powerful portion of the article was pages 419-421, where we see first how the composing task (a multimodal autobiography to be presented to peers) was carefully broken down into its component parts, and then how each step was adapted to differentiate for Cindy. This is powerful because breaking tasks down for learners is one way we can scaffold those tasks. It is not always easy to see how a task can be scaffolded in this way, but this example shows it well. Then, knowing exactly how each step was differentiated for Cindy is helpful. We sometimes are told that we need to differentiate, but specific ways to do that are lacking. Here we get details. Teachers will appreciate those.

The two areas that gave me pause in this account were also acknowledged by these authors. One area was assessment. We are given rich details here of how Cindy built her autobiography using visual and auditory text elements, and the authors point to visible gains in Cindy’s verbal, motor, and social skills, but in the end, these are observational and anecdotal conclusions; we don’t see any real assessment data. We can see possibilities here, but there is no solid evidence. The authors state that their intentions had originally not been to study just this child; apparently this case emerged as part of a larger study, so a plan for assessing outcomes for Cindy had not been made. A next step might be to think about how to assess this approach with children like Cindy.

A second area that gave me pause (also acknowledged by the authors) was the role a paraprofessional played in scaffolding Cindy’s progress on the autobiography. The paraprofessional was there to help, but where do you draw the line between scaffolding too much and scaffolding too little? Where does support become pre-emption of the opportunity to learn? For children with ASD, becoming independent and not so teacher-centered can be a challenge. In this account, the paraprofessional clearly meant well, but at times seemed to overstep in ways that might have limited Cindy’s growth. I know, though, that working with a child with special needs can be challenging, and negotiating that balance between too much and too little support is an ongoing struggle. We could criticize, but it’s a difficult job.

As is typical with this journal (and all NCTE journals), there are helpful sidebars for those who want to extend their knowledge. Here, we get resources on autobiography projects from the resource-packed readwritethink web site (p. 416), some facts and figures on ASD (p. 421), and three valuable resources (pp. 424-425), including a link to the Autism Speaks organization web site, a link to a movie about autism, and a children’s book on autism. All of these may be accessed online and are useful. In general, the article provides much helpful information for working with learners with ASD.