Comparison of school-age children with dyslexia and typically developing school-age children in terms of phonological awareness and auditory/visual working memory

Reading skills are one of the important predictors of academic success. It is seen that some cognitive skills play an important role in the development of reading skills. Research also shows that phonological awareness and working memory skills are related to reading. Therefore, this study examined phonological awareness, working memory and reading skills while comparing students between 1st and 4th grade with a diagnosis of dyslexia and their peers with normal development. Data was collected from 51 children diagnosed with dyslexia and 49 children without dyslexia. In order to measure phonological awareness skills among students, this study developed a new test that includes four different subtasks. Students' working memory skills were evaluated by Digit Span Backward Test and Corsi Block Tapping Task in backward order, and short-term memory skills were evaluated by Digit Span Forward Test and Corsi Block Tapping Task in forward order. Students' reading skills were measured by Oral Reading Skill and Reading Comprehension Test (SOBAT). Specific Learning Disability Symptom Checklists (MOYA) were administered by the teachers of the students. The results of this research revealed that the newly developed phonological awareness test has high internal consistency reliability, which means that it measures phonological awareness skills effectively. Even though it was seen that children with reading difficulties showed lower performance in phonological awareness tasks, working memory tasks, reading skills and MOYA Teacher Form evaluations compared to their peers with normal development, there was no difference between the groups in reading comprehension. The study revealed that there are significant relationships among variables. Firstly, it was found that the reading skills of children with reading disorders were predicted by phonological awareness and their grade level. Secondly, reading skills of children without reading disorders were predicted through phonological awareness, visual working memory and visual short-term memory. Thirdly, among children with reading impairment, phonological awareness and grade levels allowed to predict teachers' evaluations about children's challenges in comprehending and using verbal and written language, and making mistakes in reading and writing. However, these evaluations with children without reading disorders were only predicted by grade level. Keywords: Reading difficulties, dyslexia, phonological awareness, working memory