Effects of superimposition and background fading on the sight-word reading of a boy with autism

We used a multiple-baseline design across materials to assess the effects of stimulus superimposition and background fading on the sight-word reading skills of a 6-year-old boy with autism. Before the study began, the boy was taught to make verbal responses when shown 15 photographs of physical education activities and equipment. During baseline and teaching, probes of target words relevant to the photographs (e.g., slide, swing) were conducted in discrete-trial sessions. When teaching began, three sets of target sight words were successively superimposed on photographs of the corresponding activities and backgrounds were then faded by removing portions of the photographs until only the text was visible. After all fading steps were completed, the student correctly read 14–15 of the 15 target words and these skills maintained on a 44-day follow up probe. Further, generalization measures showed that reading skills transferred across text size and color. Superimposition and background fading quickly expanded the sight-word reading repertoire of a youngster with autism.