Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Cognitive Rehabilitation Focused on Working Memory in Improving Symptoms of Reading Disorder in Primary School Students

The purpose of the present study was the study of effectiveness of cognitive rehabilitation focused on working memory on the improvement of reading symptoms in elementary school students.

For this purpose, and in form of the semi-experimental intergroup project with pre-test and post-test, thirty people were selected purposefully from the statistical population of female and male primary school students with dyslexia who referred to learning disorders centers in Urmia in the academic year of 97-98. Pre-test was performed for both groups using "Reading and Dyslexia Test" tool. After recording pre-test results, cognitive rehabilitation based on working memory was performed. On this basis, active memory training was planned for 20 sessions, which was performed every week in two thirty-minute sessions. Finally, post-test was conducted to investigate the proposed changes.

The results of dependent t-test showed that cognitive rehabilitation based on working memory is effective in improving symptoms of reading disorder.

Based on these findings, training and strengthening of working memory can lead to improvement of symptoms of reading disorder.