REVISITING THE ROLE OF VISUAL PERCEPTION ON THE READING SKILLS OF STUDENTS WITH LEARNING DISABILITIES: SOME EDUCATIONAL PLANNING CHALLENGES

Students with learning disabilities often struggle with reading skill acquisition, due to the nature and complexity of the reading process (Brown, 2009). In addition, it has been documented that students experiencing reading disabilities, have problems with the basic cognitive skills of visual perception (Stokes, Matthen & Biggs, 2015). The purpose of the present study was to investigate the role of the cognitive parameters of visual perception, assessed by the Developmental Test of Visual Perception-2nd Edition (DTVP-2, Hammill, Pearson & Voress, 1993) on the reading ability of students with learning disabilities, assessed by Test A (Panteliadou & Antoniou, 2007, Standardized test for reading disabilities in Greek). The sample consisted of 73 children (N=73) attending the 4th and 5th grade of Primary school, diagnosed with learning disability in reading. The results indicated that visual perception was a predictive factor for reading performance. Implications of these findings are discussed in terms of developing early detection programmes as well as effective educational interventions for pre-school and primary school students.