The effectiveness of the cogmed computer-assisted cognitive rehabilitation program on the reading skills of linguistic dyslexic children

Abstract

Objectives This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of the Cogmed computer-assisted cognitive rehabilitation program and training for reading in improving reading skills in children with linguistic dyslexia. Methods A randomized, controlled clinical trial was used. Thirty children with linguistic dyslexia were assigned to experimental group (n = 15) or control group (n = 15). Two participants (one from each group) dropped out during the intervention, resulting in a final sample of 28 participants (n = 14 per group. The experimental group received 25 sessions of reading training and the Cogmed cognitive rehabilitation intervention, while the control group only received reading training. Data were collected using the NEMA Reading and Dyslexia Test, the Specific Learning Disorder Questionnaire, Raven’s Progressive Matrices Test, and the Assessment of Persian Reading Ability. Results The findings indicated that the combined Cogmed and reading training intervention significantly improved multiple reading components, including low-frequency word reading (F = 56.34, p < 0.001, η2 = 0.68), high-frequency word reading (F = 29.62, p < 0.001, η2 = 0.53), word chains (F = 39.76, p = 0.001, η2 = 0.60), and word comprehension (F = 49.19, p = 0.001, η2 = 0.65). Conclusions The combined Cogmed and reading training intervention produced statistically significant improvements across multiple reading subskills in children with linguistic dyslexia. These improvements remained stable over a one-month follow-up period, indicating short-to-medium-term durable cognitive and linguistic gains. Future research should examine long-term maintenance, test efficacy in other dyslexia subtypes, and utilize executive function (EFs) assessments along with neuroimaging techniques to explore the underlying mechanisms of change.