Treatment manual in English for Indian children with Dyslexia

Abstract

Dyslexia refers to difficulty in the acquisition of literacy skills that may be caused by a combination of phonological processing, visual and auditory processing difficulties. Management issues of these children with dyslexia have always been a challenge for the speech and language therapist. Though many treatment strategies have been discussed and their efficacy reported in literature, not many attempts have been made at training the Indian children. The present study thus aimed at developing a manual in English of Indian Children with Dyslexia (CWD) and also field testing the same. Such a focus of intervention would help the children tackle the difficulties they face in their second language at school level. The study initially involved the development of the treatment manual. The manual consisted of four sections namely listening comprehension, phonological awareness, reading skills and reading comprehension. This therapeutic intervention was carried out for four children with dyslexia for 10 sessions. Pre-therapy scores of these children on the skills worked upon were compared to post-therapy scores. Results revealed improvement in all the domains which were worked upon though not statistically significant. Participant I (DI) and D2 showed greater improvement across all domains worked upon. This study thus brings light into the domains which need to be incorporated when dealing with the therapeutic intervention of children with dyslexia. However generalization issues still needs to be addressed.