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.

Key words: Dyslexia, school children, learning disability