Profile and neuropsychological differences in adolescent students with and without dyslexia

Abstract

Dyslexia is a problem of increasing prevalence in school-age students. The latest experiences in the application of neuropsychology to education are interesting because they allow for the evaluation of different neuropsychological variables to obtain a better understanding of the learning processes of students in this population for specific subsequent interventions. The purpose of this study was to explore the following neuropsychological variables related to reading in adolescent students with and without dyslexia. The sample consisted of 60 students between 13 and 15 years of age, 30 with dyslexia and 30 without. The King Devick test was used to assess the saccadic eye movements, specifically the fast and automated denomination of digits; the Harris laterality test was used to evaluate functional laterality, and the ENFEN test for executive functions. The results revealed significant differences between the two groups. Students with dyslexia scored lower on the three neuropsychological skills assessed. These findings suggest that students with dyslexia may manifest poorer performance in those neuropsychological skills that are key to reader development.

Exploring basic numerical capacities in children with difficulties in simple arithmetical achievement

“…In addition to these domain-specific hypotheses, others have proposed that ALD may be secondary to deficits in domain-general processes, such as executive functions, working memory (WM), and intellectual capacity. Several studies have reported deficits in WM in children with ALD (and also in children with reading disabilities), both when assessing verbal WM with digit span, and when using visuo-spatial span tasks (Aragón et al, 2019;Barnes et al, 2020;Castro et al, 2017;Guzmán et al, 2019;Ibáñez-Azorín et al, 2019).…”