Autism-Ready Libraries: Early Literacy Services for Autistic Children and Their Families

Public libraries are uniquely suited to provide early literacy services to autistic children and their families, despite the barriers libraries often face serving this population. Autism-Ready Libraries aimed to improve public libraries’ capacity to provide early literacy programming to autistic children and their families. We did so by investigating the needs and barriers faced by autistic children and their families in libraries, as well as the needs and barriers experienced by librarians who wish to better serve this population. 

This presentation will provide an overview of our research and the findings which informed our Autism-Ready Libraries Toolkit (ARLT), as well as a look into the Toolkit itself. The ARLT can be used by library staff to provide access and inclusion to early literacy services for autistic children and their families.

This presentation was recorded live on Tuesday, October 24, 2023.