Impact of Perceptual-motor Training on the Reading Performance of Students with Dyslexia

Dyslexia is one of the important factors affecting the lack of educational progress in elementary school students. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of perceptual-motor training on the reading performance of students with dyslexia in the girl students of the third grade of elementary school in Isfahan, Iran.

This pretest-posttest study was carried out on 30 subjects selected through the convenience sampling method from the students with dyslexia who referred to the learning disorder center of Isfahan. The subjects were randomly assigned into the two groups of intervention and control with 15 participants in each group. The students of the experiment group received ten two-hour sessions of individual perceptual-motor training, while the subjects in the control group did not receive any intervention. The research instruments used for this study included reading screening test, and Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children. The reading screening test was completed both pretest and posttest.

Findings of the statistical analysis demonstrated that the total score of reading progress had a significant difference between the students of control and test groups. Moreover, it was revealed that perceptual-motor training could significantly affect diverse abilities, such as word separating, gap filling, text reading, and letter pronunciation (P<0.05). However, no significant difference was observed between the two groups of intervention and control in terms of word segmentation and spelling.

According to the results of this study, perceptual-motor training can be applied as a technique for improving the reading performance of students with dyslexia.