Computer-aided dyslexia assessment – Provia’s usability in dyslexia screening

Abstract

Provia is a computerized battery designed for children with the aim of finding suitable training areas from Lexia, a commonly used remediation program for linguistic deficits in Finnish schools and rehabilitation centers. The objective was to study the suitability of the Finnish version of the Provia as a dyslexia screening tool. Provia was administered (in groups of 10‒15 pupils) for 260 school-aged children in Finland, followed by individual neuropsychological tests (n=77) and analyses (n=75) regarding reading, writing, naming, and other related skills.

The results revealed decent validity and reliability of the battery to assess dyslexia in Finnish children (α= .83 ‒ .85). Performance in Provia was compared to performance in a standardized and commonly used reading and spelling test Lukilasse. Errors in Provia in general as well as in its individual subtests were associated with reading (r = -.34 ‒ -.57, p<.001) and writing (r = -.32 ‒ -.51, p<.001).  Especially the errors in Provia’s phonological subtests were proven to predict reading and writing errors and slowness of reading in Lukilasse the most. The study offers clinically valuable information that can be used to further understand dyslexia as well as the usability and development of different dyslexia assessment and remediation methods.