Statistics of Children with Specific Learning Disability Disorder

Specific LD is a developmental disorder manifesting as difficulty in Reading, writing, comprehending or using language calculations, whereas the child has normal intelligence and conventional schooling adequate motivation and opportunity.

About 5-15 of school going children has LD. Dyslexia is most common and most studied one affecting 80% of all those identified as LD. There are significant gender difference, boys are more often dyscalculia and language difficulties, there are no noticeable differences. The incidence of dyslexia in Indian primary school children has been reported by to be affected in developmental dyslexia than girls 4:1. However, in development2-18%, dysgraphia 14% and dyscalulia 5. 5%. However, its awareness as a significant cause of academic underachievement has recently increased. Various factors are implicated in understanding SLD. Social variables like socioeconomic stress and material education have links with school performance. Around 40%of children with ADHD also meet diagnostic criteria for dyslexia. SLD is widely associated with affective disorder, particularly depression, deficit in social skills, self esteem:, peer relationship problems, feeling of lack of control and poor self esteem. Common behavioral signs of learning disabilities fall within two cateogries.

Karande et al found that about 40 percent of the sample of Indian children with SLD had developed aggressive or withdrawn behavior.

The increasing focus on child mental health in developing countries like India points to the importance of epidemiological research in developing training, service and research paradigm. As there is need of more identifiable data, we planned to study to the overall pattern of risk factors, co-occurance of ADHD, led us comparing certain parameters between those having SLD with and without ADHD.

Out of the total studied 2015 case records. 73. 35 percent were male; male to female ratio being 2.75:1. Mean age was 12. 9 years and87. 99 percent were right handed. 67.14 percent were from state board schools and had English as their medium for instructions. 94.19%

Male and female ratio was 2.75;1. Earlier studies have found SLD occurring more in boys, but recent ones found no difference. Higher number of males has been considered to be the result of referral bias by various authors. Handedness was nearly similar to what exist in general population.

2.13% of them were school dropouts. Zingmod et al in his study found 50% of the youth with learning disabilities( in comparison to 33% of their peer group) had left school before graduation. 30. 3% of the students in our study had changed their schools at last once started by other studies as well. Mean IQ here, was nearly similar to previous studies, including those in Indian children.

There were 25 adopted children in this study, for whom antental or birth related details were not available. Considering the perinatal factors of the rest, psychological stress to mother was present during pregnancy in 10. 17% of the study group, as elicited on history. Delivery of the child was normal in 72.04% and the rest were Caesarean section or assisted. 9. 48% of the mothers of these children suffered from antenatal complications.