Investigating the Effect of Family-Centered Multisensory Program on Reading Skills and Its Components in 8- to 9-Year-Old Students with Special Learning Disability

Dyslexia is one of the most controversial problems of students with specific learning disability. In dyslexia, children use decoding words and try to generalize, i.e., read new words not previously seen. Reading disorder should be considered one of the most essential factors of school dropout, academic failure, and other psychological consequences among students. Therefore, it is imperative to use effective methods for reading disorders. Multisensory methods are among the effective methods for improving reading disorders based on family–centered education—the importance of family–centered intervention results from the direct family relationship with the disordered child. The present study investigates the effectiveness of the family–centered multisensory program on reading skills and its components in 8– to 9–year–old students with specific learning disabilities.

The present study adopted a quasi–experimental approach with a pretest–posttest design with a control group. The statistical population included all students referring to two educational centers and part of special problems in Qorveh City, Iran. The research sample included 28 volunteer students with reading disorders, selected by an accessible sampling. Then, they were divided into two groups, experimental and control (14 people in each group). The inclusion criteria were students studying in the second grade of elementary school, not taking drugs in the field of psychological problems, not undergoing psychological treatment, and having parental consent. Family–centered multisensory intervention program was performed in 16 informative sessions for parents of the experimental group. The study data were collected using the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children–the Fourth Edition (WISC–IV) (Wechsler, 2003) and the Reading and Dyslexia Test (NEMA) (Kormi Nouri & Moradi, 2005). To analyze the data, descriptive (frequency distribution table, mean, and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (univariate covariance analysis test) were used at a significance level of 0.05 by SPSS version 21 software.

The results showed that the family–centered multisensory program training led to a significant difference between the experimental and control groups in the reading variable and its components (reading, reading words, word chain, rhyme test, naming pictures, comprehending text, comprehending words, eliminating sounds, reading non–words and pseudowords, letter signs test and category signs test) (p<0.001). Also, the effect of family–centered multisensory program training on the reading variable was found to be 0.407.

Based on the findings, a family–centered multisensory intervention program can reduce the effects of the reading disorder and eliminate the consequences of dyslexia. It is also effective for solving reading disorders and improving reading and its components in second–grade students.