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The effect of learning Greek historical orthography on the visual and perceptual abilities of the children

Background

The results of an ongoing pilot study concerning learning effects of Greek historical orthography on the psychoeducational abilities of children are presented.

Materials and methods

These effects were studied on two groups of children (25 children each one) of the first three grades of the elementary school. The two groups were comparable as regards demographic, educational, social characteristics and extra curricular activities, but were differentiated as concerns the additional learning of the Greek historical orthography. The children were assessed by experienced psychologists through two valid tests standardized in the Greek population: the WISC-III intelligence scale, and the "Athina test", a psychoeducational scale. Both groups were assessed during the same period and the retest was administered 12 months later. The performance of both groups was studied through the use of statistical methods (T-test, Paired T-test, as well as non parametric tests).

Results

The Greek historical orthography group indicates statistically significant differences in the following subscales of the "Athina test": copy of figures, distinction of graphics; and an important increase on the subscales: memory of figures and memory of pictures. As concerns the WISC-III, a statistically significant difference was observed on the object assembly subscale. The above subscales involve mainly visual and perceptual factors and functions.

Discussion

The findings appear to provide a strong indication that learning of Greek historical orthography promotes the level and the degree of the child development in some important aspects of the cognitive development, such as the visual and perceptual factors and functions.

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Open Access This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Vekiari, D., Tsegos, I. & Papadakis, T. The effect of learning Greek historical orthography on the visual and perceptual abilities of the children. Ann Gen Psychiatry 5 (Suppl 1), S152 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1186/1744-859X-5-S1-S152

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1744-859X-5-S1-S152

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