Every child has the right to access the education curriculum in their least restrictive environment. Therefore, it is important that students with special education needs, such as autism spectrum disorder can access general education in inclusive environments. A between-groups design was used to investigate the Edmark (R) Reading Program (ERP) across inclusive school settings, and self-contained classrooms, to compare its efficacy in basic teaching reading outcomes using both table-top and software format. Nine schools were randomized into two groups. There were between 2 and 8 students per school, and 31 students in total. Participants were exposed to ERP in one of two conditions, table-top instruction (TTI) or computer-assisted instruction (CAI), for one full school semester. Assessments of reading ability were conducted before and after exposure to ERP on word reading, accuracy, rate, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. When formats were compared, there were statistically significant differences found in favor of TTI on reading accuracy (small effect; size, 0.19), reading rate (medium effect size; 0.74) and phonemic awareness, specifically first sound fluency (small effect size; 0.19). Despite these outcomes, upon completion of the study, many teachers in the TTI condition requested to switch to CAI, possibly highlighting the perceived response effort required in the administration of ERP-TTI. Descriptive analyses of pre-post data also showed that students made sizable growth on many reading outcomes.
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