Middle Eastern Journal of Disability Studies

Abstract
Background & Objectives: The ability to read is one of the most vital skills in today's modern world. Disability in reading occurs when a person's reading skill or general reading ability is significantly less than expected concerning intellectual abilities. It is accepted that other disabling conditions with environmental effects did not play a role. Many researchers believe that although the brain and perceptual system are not damaged in children with reading disorders, they function differently than typical children. Some researchers report a significant weakness in the visual motor perception of these children compared to normal children. This problem occurs in some dyslexic students in the form that they read a sentence but cannot understand its meaning or cannot understand written signs. So, the present study aims to determine the effectiveness of the native pattern of perceptual enrichment in improving the reading ability of dyslexic children in the third grade of elementary school studying in Hamedan City, Iran.
Methods: The research method was quasi–experimental with a pretest–posttest design and a control group. This study's population comprises all third–grade students with dyslexia studying in Hamadan in the academic year 2020–2021. Of them, 50 people were selected by purposive methods and randomly divided into experimental and control groups. In this study, the perceptual enrichment training package was considered an independent variable, and the reading ability of children with dyslexia was considered a dependent variable. The perceptual enrichment training package intervention for the experimental group was implemented in a group setting. Information about the type of treatment, the participant's attendance at the session, and the number and time of the sessions were provided to the students and their parents. Confidentiality was explained as a basic principle in the treatment, and finally, subjects who expressed their consent to participate in the groups were selected. The conditions for the subjects to enter the study were as follows: diagnosis of dyslexia by clinical psychologists of the centers based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (2), education in the third grade of elementary school, male gender, no parallel treatment process, parental consent for the student to participate in the study, and student consent for participation in the study. The conditions for subjects to withdraw from the study were failure to regularly attend treatment sessions, complete homework assignments, and complete the questionnaires in the pretest and posttest. The intervention was performed in 21 sessions for the experimental group. The control group did not undergo a parallel treatment process during the study, with the children's and parents' agreement. The Reading and Dyslexia Test (NEMA) (Karami Nouri et al., 2006) was used in the pretest and posttest in the experimental and control groups. Multivariate analysis of covariance was used in SPSS version 21 software to analyze the data. The significance level of statistical tests was set at 0.05.
Results: The results showed that the native pattern of perceptual enrichment significantly improved reading ability in dyslexic children (p<0.001).
Conclusion: Based on the above findings, perceptual enrichment treatment has a significant effect on the reading ability of dyslexic students and has an effect on all 25 students, so its application can be fruitful. Therefore, it is recommended that perceptual enrichment therapy be integrated or used in treatment programs for people with dyslexia.