Prevalence of dyslexia among school children in Mysore

Abstract

Background: Dyslexia is defined as difficulty in learning to read and spell despite adequate education, intelligence, socio cultural opportunities and without any obvious sensory deficits. Objective: 1) To estimate the prevalence of dyslexia among school children. 2) To study the factors associated with dyslexia. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study conducted in 4 randomly selected government schools of Mysore for a period of two months from August 2013 to September 2013. Data was collected by using a pretested dyslexia screening questionnaire. Result: Out of 400 students overall prevalence of dyslexia was found to be 13.67%. When compared with gender, prevalence of dyslexia was 19.00 % among males and 8.50% among females. About 66.70% dyslexics gave a family history of dyslexia. History of difficulty with spellings was seen among 54.80% of dyslexics. About 61.70% experienced difficulty in copying from the blackboard, 56.30% were confused following instructions while playing games. It was noticed that about 64.30% dyslexics were left handed. It was found that 64.30% dyslexics were unable to count backwards from 100 down to 0 and about 77.80% dyslexics were observed reversing numbers or digits. Eighty percent of dyslexics had difficulty in following directions like left and right. On observing their handwriting 59.60% dyslexics had illegible handwriting. Conclusion: This study suggests that the prevalence of dyslexia is on a higher side which suggests that more prevalence studies is required to develop remedial education and policy interventions in the educational system to improve the school performance of such children.