PREVALENCE OF LEARNING DISABILITY IN THE MOROCCAN CONTEXT: EPIDEMIOLOGICAL STUDY

Abstract

The interest given to the manifestations and repercussions of learning disability (LD) is relatively recent in Morocco, not only in research but also in endorsing students and their families to contribute to the assessment of learning disability and how prevalence it, as well as the factors which may influence it, particularly factors linked to the socio-economic level, gender, genetics, and the linguistic environment. This work aims to study LD prevalence, considering the Moroccan educational system specificity. It was conducted based on three main steps: identification, screening, and diagnosis and carried out with 14,605 primary school pupils in 63 public and 16 private schools from 2012 to 2018. The identification is based on tests that seek to assess spelling in Arabic, French, along with arithmetic, to be administered collectively to the students. Screening and diagnosis are undertaken by multidisciplinary teams comprising speech therapists, neuropsychologists, psychologists, psychomotor therapists, and child psychiatrists. As a result, it was revealed that 12% of the students screened present at least one specific learning incident with specific reading disorder (dyslexia) at 11.6% of our sample. Moreover, the specific spelling disorder with a prevalence of 11.52%, and dysgraphia with a prevalence of 4.6%, while in 3% of our sample, we suspected specific disorder of arithmetic skills (dyscalculia). These disorders affect two times more boys than girls. Additionally, their rate is significantly impacted by genetic heritage and linguistic environment. However, the association between the socio-economic profile and the prevalence of learning disabilities has not been established.