A Study on the Effects of Linguistic Plays on Verbal Working Memory Performance in Students with Reading Disorder

Aim: The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of linguistic plays on the verbal working memory performance in students with reading disorder.
The study design was quasi-experimental, with pre-test, post-test and control group. In this study, purposeful selected method was used for sampling and the sample was included 30 students in second and third grades. The study population were referred to Learning Disorders Clinics in Tehran and the Imam Hossein Hospital and were diagnosed as the reading disorder. The subjects were randomly assigned to the two experimental and control groups (each containing 15 individuals). Linguistic plays were conducted for a 50-minute session for six weeks (two sessions per week). To evaluate the effect of the linguistic plays, working memory subtests of WISC-4 (as an index of verbal working memory) were utilized. Analysis of covariance was used to analyze the data.
The findings achieved through data analysis showed that after omitting pre-test effect, test of working memory indicates the effectiveness of linguistic plays on the performance of verbal working memory both in students’ total score in the test and in working memory sub-tests.
According to the results of this research and the importance of improving working memory performance of students with reading disorder, it can be suggested that the linguistic plays can be used in the schools and health centers to increase the performance of both working memory in students with reading disorder.