Comparison of working memory and sensory profile in boys and girls with writing disability

The main problems of children with learning disabilities are in cognition and their sensations. This study aimed to investigate the comparison of working memory and sensory profile in boys and girls with writing disability.

The methodology of this descriptive study was the comparative type. The statistical population of this study was all girls and boys by the age of 8-10 suffering from the writing disability in Gorgan City during treatment in a writing disability center in summer of 2018. According to the research method, the stratified random sampling method was used and 50 boys and 58 girls were selected from each group. According to research tools, the Dunn profile (1999) was obtained from the parents of the children. In the area of Daneman, & Carpenter working memory (1980), questions were asked from the children directly, and the information related to processing and storage in their memory were received. Data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of variance analysis using SPSS24 software.

Descriptive findings showed that mean and standard deviation in boys and girls were respectively in Processing (50.32±6.93, 54.22±7.45), Storage (48.47±6.08, 53.17±6.07), Indoctrination associated with the physical state of the body motion (34.28±7.09, 36.91±6.48), Multisensory processing (34.68±5.21, 37.94±6.57), Auditory Processing (31.74±5.84, 35.52±6.59). Also the results indicate that there is a significant difference in the writing disability among processing (P<0.006) and storage (P<0.000) of working memory subscales and the Indoctrination associated with the physical state of the body motion (P<0.000), Multisensory processing (P<0.000) and Auditory Processing (P<0.002), of the sensory profile variable in both the girls and boys with writing disability.

with regard to the results obtained, it can be concluded that the boys group is in worse conditions in working memory and sensory processing styles, which requires a special attention and more focused educational approaches.