asd and reading, difficulties expanding vocabulary

[amunt]

Ds (7) can decode in line with his peers, but I don't know how he is going to ever expand his vocabulary.

Words that NT peers pick up through context, .e.g. 'he strutted off' , 'showing off', 'rubbing their hands with glee' would have to be explicitly explained to him with multiple examples and drilling for him to 'know' them - not really feasible. It feels like his progress in English is going grind to a halt because of this. He is reasonably bright although does struggle with most aspects of English.

Anyone had any experience of this? Thanks

Keep reading to him, use audio books, watch interesting films and documentaries, visit interesting places, look at and describe stuff together, help him decode idioms etc (there's a nice book by and autistic author/illustrator called It's raining cats and dogs).

What's helped ds a lot is reading him books that are a notch above his reading level, so lots of exposure to interesting language he might not encounter, but can be discussed as you go. Doesn't have to be serious, language stuff is bonkers sometimes and it's good to say that.

Thanks HardAsSnails
That's the kind of thing we do, but will keep at it. It doesn't help that he really struggles to follow stories and TV, even at a quite a simple level. So he never wants to watch TV or movies and never chooses to read, which is where his NT sister has learnt so much. It's funny I haven't come across any other asd children that on the one hand are quite hf and able, but on the other so unable to understand basic stories.
Will check out the book you mentioned!

Have you any idea of his processing speed and language comprehension? SLT or Ed Psych can test and suggest strategies to help.

He may find films and audiobooks move a little too quickly for him, and/or he may have trouble tuning out all the background sounds in a film to clearly hear the dialogue.
A friend who has ASD cannot understand any TV programme or video on its own unless the subtitles are on at the same time.
They also cannot read a large block of text unless it's broken up into short paragraphs, because it's too overwhelming.

It's funny I haven't come across any other asd children that on the one hand are quite hf and able, but on the other so unable to understand basic stories

Spiky profile that's usually the thing that has schools baffled, they use reasoning that because the child can do AB+C then by extrapolation they must be able to do DEFG+H, but that's just not the case the child can do only what the child can do.

Thanks BlankTimes
Yes, I think processing speed is probably the main problem when it comes to following stories and movies.