A Study of Word Reading in Persian-speaking Children With Dyslexia and Normal Ones

Reading is undoubtedly one of the most valuable skills of human beings. This complex behavior is composed of several distinct skills. Different theories about reading methods have been proposed and many researchers believe that reading methods varies in languages because of the different transparency in their orthography, so the purpose of this study is to investigate the Persian word reading pattern in children with dyslexia and normal children and compare their abilities.

For conducting this cross-sectional study, after issuing required permits, the elementary school children with dyslexia were identified by referring to learning disorders schools in Tehran City, Iran. After evaluating and diagnosing by the psychologist and speech therapist, 16 students with dyslexia were found. Then 32 normal age-matched students of Tehran’s public schools were randomly selected from the available population as the control group. The reading and phonological awareness tests were then performed in different sessions. The results of the tests were recorded and the data were analyzed by the Mann-Whitney and Spearman tests in SPSS version 20.

There was a significant difference between children with dyslexia and their age-matched normal group in reading skills and phonological awareness (P<0.05). In both groups, the mean percentage in reading irregular words was higher than the mean percentage of non-word reading. There is a significant correlation between reading speed and reading irregular words in both groups, and also between reading accuracy and reading non-words (P<0.05). There was a significant correlation between the reading speed and reading non-words in the group with dyslexia (P<0.05). But in normal children, there is no significant correlation between these tasks. This difference shows the problem of children with dyslexia pertains to reading non-words.

Based on the results of the present study, in children with dyslexia, there is a problem with reading non-words, and the dual-route of word reading has changed to only the whole word reading route. So it is important to consider phonological awareness skills training in children with dyslexia.