Evaluating the Effectiveness of Davis and Orton Integrated Model Training on Dyslexia in Primary School Students in Ahvaz City, Iran

Learning disability is a common childhood disorder. Academic problems are the most important indicator of learning disability that can be seen in various fields. These areas include reading, writing, speaking, and doing math. A reading disorder is a condition in which reading progress is less than expected for the child's age, education, and intelligence. The Davis and Orton methods are multisensory teaching methods emphasizing motor and tactile stimuli with visual and auditory effects. The Davis method consists of two stages. The first is mental imagery and positioning counseling, in which children have concepts of situational recognition and the notion that positioning can be used as a consideration of the situation with events and environmental conditions. The second is the mastery of symbols, which in this way, using the paste, makes special signs such as letters of the alphabet, punctuation marks, and incomprehensible words based on the meaning of the words. In the Orton method, the student is taught to see and pronounce a letter, hear the sound, and write it. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of the Davis and Orton integrated model on the rate of dyslexia in primary school students in Ahvaz City, Iran.

The research method was quasi–experimental with a pretest–posttest design with a control group. This integrated method was designed for the second grade of elementary school. Davis and Orton's approaches were evaluated as a single model and an independent variable on students' dyslexia as a dependent variable. At first, the pretest was taken from the experimental and control groups. Then this method was taught to the experimental group. Finally, after performing the posttest on both groups, the effectiveness of the integrated method was evaluated. The statistical population included all male and female second–grade elementary students in four education districts of Ahvaz (N=16000) studying in normal public schools in the 2018–2019 academic year. A total of 352 male and female students were selected by cluster sampling. The inclusion criteria included studying in the second grade of elementary school, having an IQ above 85 using Raven's Colored Progressive Matrices Test, having two standard deviations below average (score 30) in the Reading and Dyslexia Test (NAMA), lacking behavioral disorders, mental retardation, vision or hearing problems, and not benefiting from learning disabilities training centers. The exclusion criteria were the absence of more than two sessions and the unwillingness to participate in the study. Then, 28 dyslexic students were randomly selected and assigned to the experimental and control groups. Data in the pretest and posttest for two groups were gathered via the Reading and Dyslexia Test (NAMA) (Kormi Nouri and Moradi, 2006). The integrated method of Davis and Orton was presented to the experimental group in fourteen 45–minute group sessions (seven persons in each group). In this study, descriptive statistics (frequency, mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (Independent t test to compare the age of two groups and univariate covariance analysis) were used for analyzing data in SPSS software version 22. P values less than 0.05 were considered the acceptable significance level for statistical tests.

The findings showed that the effectiveness of teaching the Davis and Orton integrated model was effective in reducing dyslexia related to reading words with high/medium/low–frequency words (p=0.001), word chain (p=0.004), rhyme (p=0.008), naming pictures (p=0.023), text comprehension (p=0.011), word comprehension (p=0.023), non–word reading (p=0.001), letter signs (p=0.009), and the symptoms of the category (p=0.013). However, it was ineffective in reducing dyslexia related to the elimination of sounds in the experimental group (p=0.141).

According to the study findings, teaching an integrated model of Davis and Orton to dyslexic students is a suitable and effective method to reduce dyslexia in students with this disability.