Preliminary developmental challenges of children at risk for specific learning disabilities: Insights from parents and teachers—a qualitative study

Abstract

This study aims to uncover the preliminary developmental challenges experienced by children from infancy to their primary school years, who are subsequently diagnosed with specific learning disabilities during their primary education. The ultimate goal is to develop an item pool to identify early symptoms of specific learning disabilities. This qualitative descriptive design study employed semi-structured interviews with 20 participants, comprising both parents and teachers of 10 children aged 8–11. The interviews lasted between 45 and 60 min. To ensure the research's quality and reliability, we applied evaluation criteria and performed six-stage thematic analysis framework. The results indicate that children experienced developmental difficulties from infancy to preschool period that impacted their social-emotional development, language and communication, motor and self-care skills, as well as their perception, memory, attention, and self-regulation capabilities. These challenges were exacerbated during the school years by motivation-related issues. Parental observations primarily highlighted difficulties in language and communication, such as pronunciation, initiating conversations, and speech, during the first three years of life. Significant issues in social-emotional development included introversion, a need for physical contact, challenges in maintaining relationships, and adherence to rules. These challenges emerged during the first three years of children and progressively worsened across all developmental domains. This study contributes valuable insights into the literature by providing past observations from parents and teachers, thus enhancing understanding of the preliminary developmental challenges faced by children at risk of specific learning disabilities.