A Meta-Analysis of Technology-Based Interventions on the Phonological Skills of Children with Dyslexia

Abstract

There is a growing awareness of the need to understand how technology can help in education, especially in the area of special educational needs. The purpose of this meta‐analysis is to synthesise findings from independent studies gathered by a systematic review of the literature on the effectiveness of technology‐based interventions on the phonological skills of children diagnosed with dyslexia in English. Keywords for the literature search were selected that best represented the research area: technology, computer, elearning, mobile learning, ICT; intervention, instruction, remediation, therapy; phonology, phonological skills, spelling; and dyslexia. These key terms were used for the computerised search of five databases: Academic Search Premier, Education Research Complete, ERIC, PsycARTICLES and PsycINFO. The studies that met the inclusion criteria were further meta‐analysed for effect sizes with a fixed effects approach weighted by sample sizes. The inclusion criteria were that the studies must involve a technology‐based intervention, participants of the studies must be formally diagnosed with dyslexia in English, outcome measures used must include at least one measure of phonological skills in reading, and studies must utilise a pre‐test‐post‐test experimental design and include means, standard deviations, and sample sizes. There were a total of four studies that met all criteria and these four studies employed six different technology‐based interventions. All four studies had significant results showing that technology‐based interventions positively influenced phonological skills. A grand total of 157 participants across these four studies returned a significant result for weighted pooled estimates of overall effect size on non‐word decoding (a measure of phonological skills) to be d = 0.56 (ranging from d = 0.17 to 1.38), which is a medium effect size of the technology‐based intervention. Thus, technology‐based interventions is an effective method of remediating phonological skills of children with dyslexia.