Reading in People with Down syndrome: “visual route” or “phonological route”?

Abstract Background and Purpose: Many people with Down syndrome learn to read to some degree, but how they learn to read has been debated by researchers. Some researchers have argued that given the phonological deficits of people with Down syndrome and their stronger visual-spatial abilities, they rely on the “visual route” to learn to read, while others have shown that the “phonological route” is also involved in learning to read. The purpose of this article is to investigate and compare the role of “visual route” and “phonological route” in learning and teaching reading to people with Down syndrome. Materials and Methods: The present study is a review, 50 pioneering and new related articles were reviewed from Springer, Wiley, Elsevier, Taylor and Francis, SAGE Publications and Emerald databases. Results: The results of this review showed that many people with Down syndrome can learn to read at least word. However, there are many variations in this area. Also, people with Down syndrome have difficulty using the “phonological route” to read, and they rely more on the “visual route” to read. However, both routes play a role in learning to read, although the role of the “visual route” is more prominent. Conclusion: to teach reading to people with Down Syndrome, you can use both the whole word teaching method, which is based on the “visual route” and the phonetic method, which is based on the “phonological route”, but the combination of these two methods is more efficient; Because relying on the “visual route”, the child will only be able to read the taught words, but to read new words, he also needs letter-sound knowledge.