The impact of cognitive rehabilitation on working memory and verbal fluency in dyslexic students (a single case study)

Subject Areas : Thoughts and Behavior in Clinical Psychology

Farhad Radfar ¹ (دپارتمان روان شناسی بالینی، دانشگاه شهید بهشتی تهران، تهران، ایران)
Vahid Nejati ² (دپارتمان روان شناسی بالینی، دانشگاه شهید بهشتی تهران، تهران، ایران)
Jalil Fathabadi ³ ()

Received: 2016-12-17 Accepted : 2016-12-17 Published : 2016-06-21

Keywords: developmental dyslexia, strengthen attention, working memory, verbal fluency,

Abstract :

Dyslexia, a complex neurocognitive disorder that affect literacy development, decoding and encoding processes causes significant deficiencies in the process of developing the basic skills of reading and spelling. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of cognitive rehabilitation on working memory and verbal fluency among dyslexic students. Therefore, in an ABA single subject study with a control group, 8 students with dyslexia diagnosis for whom cognitive difficulties such as attention deficit, and working memory was significant were selected through purposive sampling method and randomly divided into control and experimental groups. The subjects participated in 15 sessions of rehabilitation and were presented by assignments related to attentional functions. The subjects were evaluated for working memory and verbal fluency three times in three stages, and also in a time span of four months. The subjects in each group were evaluated10 times using N-BACK and verbal fluency test. The results (visual analysis and effect size) showed that cognitive interventions based on attention games are effective on dyslexic students’ working memory and verbal fluency performance. Strengthening basic cognitive factors such as attention with the use of cognitive rehabilitation in the early years of school can be an effective approach to improve executive functions and treatment among dyslexic students.