Autistic Word Mappers: Authographic Mapping
Orthographic mapping is the universal process by which skilled reading develops. It’s not something we teach—it’s something they reach!
Time and time again, when supporting autistic children I demonstrate that existing theories about how to get learners there can (and should) be challenged.
Alf—pictured left—was, unfortunately, an instructional casualty when I first met him. None of his teachers realised he wasn’t 'getting' phonics for three main reasons. First, he lacked the phonemic awareness needed to understand the 'phoneme' part of the grapheme-to-phoneme mapping they were trying to teach using Read, Write, Inc. (print-to-speech). Second, he needs to learn primarily through 'speech-to-print' (encoding), starting from the whole word and THEN exploring the phoneme-to-grapheme mapping! And third, he didn't really want to be 'taught' by an adult. Many neurodivergent children are autodidactic learners.
Word Mapping with Autism: Authographic Mapping
Teachers want to see "what works" in action. They want to see children at risk of struggling to read and spell—and those already struggling—and see what I do to change that. You’ll be able to follow Alf’s journey soon.
The gorgeous Alf is getting to know the new tech! By typing in Phonemies, he is developing awareness of the sounds in a word and their order. He then sees the word and can hear it voiced (it also functions as an AAC device).
He can also check the mapping to confirm which letters go together and which sounds map to those letters.
By using the 1, 2, 3 and Away! books, he can figure out the words—regardless of his GPC knowledge (separate from phonics lessons)—and THEN check the mapping. This is essential for him to learn to read. He loves the characters and is excited to explore the books.
He wants to learn with autonomy!
Listen to Alf talking about the monsters!
Autistic children benefit from seeing word structure because of their strong pattern recognition, visual processing strengths, and need for predictability. Making phonemes, graphemes, and morphemes visible reduces auditory processing demands, minimises ambiguity, and provides a clear, logical system for learning. This structured approach supports self-teaching, engagement, and deeper understanding, making reading and spelling more accessible and meaningful.
MyWordz® with MySpeekie® is a game changer! Children can just get on with it. Again, don’t take it personally that the screen gives us more of a dopamine hit than your fabulous explanations. That’s why the autistic and ADHD kids in the schools I support in Australia learn ‘visible’ phonics through tech in the classroom rather than with a teacher!
Do you have a subscription to the ICRWY Lessons app?
The 1,2,3 and Away! books are there, with Mapped Words®
When autistic children are shown the code—words mapped visually and linguistically—they understand the word and its parts, and fairly quickly learn to read because it makes sense. They are constantly mapping words in both directions and do not thrive with synthetic phonics programmes, which are almost entirely 'print-to-speech.' These 'SSP' programmes expect children to learn the 'sound value' of isolated graphemes and combine them to 'decode' words presented in plain black text.
This method is not a logical way for autistic minds to learn to map words and progress toward orthographic mapping. Instead, we call this process AUthographic mapping, as it better aligns with how autistic learners process and make sense of language. Autistic children are natural pattern seekers who love independent discovery learning.
Kensi was reading chapter books at age 4, having started using Speech Sound Monsters - Phonemies - and learning with the Speech Sound Pics (SSP) Approach in Australia when she was 2. She was diagnosed as autistic at age 5.
When you have met one autistic child you have met one autistic child. However Speech Sound Mapping is loved by all.
Speech Sound Mapping: Discovery Learning in Mind
When you show the code, you don't need to 'explicitly teach' the concepts—the 'Code Mapping®' (black/grey to indicate the Sound Pics®/graphemes) plus the Phonemies to show the sound value just make sense to children's brains.
Word Mapping Mastery!
These autistic secondary school aged students are finally able to understand English orthography. Imagine if they had been taught in this way from reception. AUthographic Mapping is life changing!