Effectiveness of training of executive functions on the performance of quantitative reasoning, knowledge, and fluid reasoning among students with learning disabilities in the first and second grades of elementary school

Recently, much attention has been focused on students with challenges in learning their school activities. Parents, trainers, and researchers witness the confusion of some students in acquiring reading and writing skills given to them as homework from the early preschool period. Therefore, the learning disorder area is a special situation. Thus, the present study was carried out aiming to investigate the effect of training executive functions on quantitative reasoning, knowledge, and fluid reasoning among students suffering from learning disabilities in the first and second grades of elementary school in South Khorasan Province, Iran.

The present investigation was a semi-experimental study and it was performed using pretest-posttest design with control group. The statistical population of the study consisted of all elementary first and second grade boy students referred to the Learning Disabilities Centers of South Khorasan in 2017-2018 school year and Qaen learning disabilities center was selected as the sample and the place for handling educational meetings. Among these students, 24 people were selected by classification sampling method from purposeful and voluntary type. Then considering resulted scores from Tehran-Stanford-Binet Experiment Intelligence Score, they were placed peer to peer in 12-people groups of experiment and control. Experiment group followed in 60-minute fifteen sessions under executive functions training. Data were analyzed using SPSS-23 software and by covariance Analysis Method.

The results revealed that there was a significant difference between the means of experiment and control groups in the variables of quantitative reasoning, knowledge, and fluid reasoning and total score of executive function. In the other words, training of executive functions caused the increase of the mean of quantitative reasoning (111.33 12.34), knowledge (110.16 16.67), fluid reasoning (110.50 16.69) and total score of executive function (332.00 38.79) in posttest stage.