Examining the effectiveness of improving working memory on reading skill in children with dyslexia

Developmental dyslexia is a Neuro-developmental disorder characterized by reading and phonological awareness problems. Considering the relationship between working memory and reading skills and other high-level cognitive skills, the purpose of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of working memory training, on the improvement of reading skills in children with dyslexia.

In this study, 30 children aged 7-9 years old with dyslexia in the second and third grade of elementary school were selected and randomly assigned to an experimental and a control group, (n=15; 7 girls and 8 boys in each group). To evaluate the cognitive and language skills of the participants, the Intelligence test (WISC-4), Sina software digits span and Corsi blocks tests, phonological awareness test, and the reading and dyslexia test (NOMA) were used. Working memory enhancement sessions (10 sessions) were held using the Sina working memory training software and pen-paper tasks (working memory span tasks) for the experimental group.

The findings of this research showed a significant difference between experimental and control groups in the mean scores of digits span and Corsi blocks at post-test (P<0.05). Also, the increase in the mean scores of the phonological awareness test and non-word reading test after the intervention showed that there was a significant difference between the two groups (P<0.001).

The results indicated after working memory training the ability to store verbal and visual-spatial information in working memory increased, and through the near transfer of the effects of training, it increased phonological awareness and improved the reading ability in children with dyslexia.