Effectiveness of Reading and Writing Training with a Combined Visual and Auditory Method in Hiragana Representing Voiced Sounds in a Child with Down Syndrome

Abstract

This study provided training in reading and writing Hiragana representing voiced sounds to a girl with Down Syndrome and tested its effectiveness. As an assessment, her Hiragana reading and writing skills and her cognitive abilities related to the acquisition of literacy were measured. In addition to phonological abilities, her visual cognitive faculties and auditory memory were found to be poor. To compensate for these, training combining visual and auditory methods of learning was used. The child practiced by looking at a character and the voiced sound mark and saying each phrase representing the notation of the target voiced sound. For practiced characters, reading and writing accuracies after training were higher than before. Her reading accuracy was maintained for six months after training. These results suggest that reading and writing training based on the child’s cognitive characteristics in this study was effective.