Comparison of performance in metalinguistic tasks among students with and without risk of dyslexia

Introduction: Studies on students at risk for dyslexia have increased as well as the interest in verifying whether tasks involving a phonological basis can favor the performance of these students in the initial literacy process.Objective:Evaluate the performance of students with and without risk of dyslexia in metalinguistic tasks.Methods: Participants of this study were 40 students, aged between 5-6 years, enrolled in the 1st year of elementary school, divided into two groups, GI: composed of 20 students without risk of dyslexia and GII: composed of 20 students at risk of dyslexia, both groups were submitted to the Evaluation Cognitive Linguistic Skills Protocol - collective and individual version (adapted), and phonological intervention composed of tasks of relation letter/sound alphabet in sequence and in random order, rhyme, identification and manipulation of words, identification and production of syllables, syllabic segmentation and analysis, identification and phonemic segmentation, substitution, synthesis, analysis and phonemic discrimination. Results: Indicated that the students from GI and GII showed statistically superior performance in the post testing compared to the performance obtained in the pre testing.Conclusion: The students at risk of dyslexia showed an increase in the mean of performance after the intervention, however, when compared with the performance of the students without risk for dyslexia, they presented inferior performance, indicating that, even after have underwent to the intervention, they did not reach the mean of performance of students without risk for dyslexia in metalinguistic tests