An investigation of the effect of reading the interactive book on the cognition and working memory of children with developmental language disorder

Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) may have attentional and behavioral problems in addition to language problems. The main aim of this study is to investigate the effects of dialogic reading (DR) on self-regulation, emotion regulation, and working memory to gain more knowledge on those additional problems. Therefore, differences in self-regulation, emotion regulation, and working memory between children with DLD and their typically developing peers (TDP) were examined. Then, a dialogic reading program was conducted with children with DLD to reveal possible gains in those skills. 30 TDP and 30 children with DLD were participated in the study. Both TDP and children with DLD were divided into two groups with 15 participants in each. First group was a control group. They didn't get any treatment. Second one was also a control group. However, DR program was used. Third group was a children with DLD group. Responsive teaching, a standard therapy method, was used in this group. Results showed that children with DLD had lower scores in self-regulation, emotion regulation and working memory than their typically developing counterparts. DR had positive effects on receptive language, self-regulation, emotion regulation and working memory in children with DLD. It was concluded that use of interventions which support both language and cognitive skills of children, such as dialogic reading, could be more helpful for children with DLD than standard therapy methods. Key words: developmental language disorder, dialogic reading, metacognition, self regulation, working memory