The Effectiveness of Cognitive Empowerment on Verbal and Visual-Spatial Working Memory of Students with Reading Disorders in the Second Year of Elementary School

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of cognitive empowerment training on working memory and visual -spatial processing of students with dyslexia in the elementary second grade. The research method was semi-experimental from the type of pretest-posttest design with control group and purposive sampling method. The study's statistical population consisted all students with dyslexia who were studying at normal schools of Ardakan city, during 2021-2022. The statistical sample of this study was 24 students that, by using purposive sampling, were placed randomly in the experimental group (12 people) and the control group (12 people). The experimental group received cognitive empowerment training for 9 (60-minute) sessions and the control group remained in the waiting list. Data collection was performed based on Daneman and Carpenter working memory tests and Corsi-Block tasks. Data analysis with multivariate analysis of covariance suggested that cognitive empowerment training had a significant effect on increasing the capacity of working memory (P<0.000, F=29.98, η2= 0/612) and visual- spatial attention (P<0.000, F=22.65, η2= 0.544). According to the study's results, it can be concluded that cognitive empowerment training is effective in increasing the capacity of working memory and visual-spatial attention of students with dyslexia. Therefore, cognitive empowerment training can be used along with other interventions to reduce the problems of students with dyslexia.