Effect of sports vision exercise on visual perception and reading performance in 7- to 10-year-old developmental dyslexic children

The presented study was aimed at identifying for the first time the influence of sports vision exercises on fundamental motor skills and cognitive skills of 7- to 10-year-old developmental dyslexic Persian children. A pretest-posttest quasi-experimental study was conducted. The statistical population of this study was 7- to 10-year-old dyslexic children referring to two centres of learning disorder in the city of Isfahan. Twenty two of these children were selected using available and purposive sampling from the statistical population and were randomly assigned into two groups of experimental and control. The former (experimental group) participated in sports vision exercise courses for 12 weeks (3 one hr sessions per week) and the latter (control group) continued their routine daily activities during the exercise. Before the beginning and at the end of the exercise, Gardner’s test of visual perception test - revised and Dehkhoda’s reading skills test was administered to both groups. The results showed that the sports vision exercises increases motor skills, visual perceptual skills and reading skills in developmental dyslexic children. Based on the results of the presented study it was concluded that sports vision exercises can be used for fundamental and cognitive skills of developmental dyslexic children.