The Effectiveness of Attention Training on Improving the Academic Performance of Students with Spelling Learning Disabilities

Background and Given the importance of interventions to improve the spelling disability and the need to prevent future problems, the purpose of this study was evaluate the effectiveness of attention training on improving the academic performance of students with spelling learning disability.
The method research of current study was semi-experimental and research design is pretest- posttest with control group. The statistical population consisted of all third and forth grades primary school students with spelling learning disability in Isfahan in 2014-2015 year. Sixty student were selected through multistage random sampling, and allocated into control and exprimental groups. The program of attention training was presented in fifteen sessions of 80 minutes on the experimental group. Pieron Precision Test (Pieron,1986), Jordan Attention Deficite Disorder Scale (Jordan,1992) and Fallah Chay Spelling Learning Disability Test (Fallah Chay,1998) were used as the research instruments. Data were analyzed using analysis of covariance.
The results of data analysis showed that attention training significantly increased the mean scores of the academic performance in experimental group compared to the control group at the post-test stage (P 0.01). Also, there was a significant difference between the mean scores of boys and girls in the spelling scores (P 0.05).
The results supported the effectiveness of attention training on improving spelling ability and academic performance in student with learning disability and have important implications in regard to attention training to reduce academic problems of students with spelling learning disability.