Middle Eastern Journal of Disability Studies

Mendeley  

Zotero  

Gholamitooranposhti M, Delavar A, Pasha Sharifi H, Sharifi N. The prevalence of learning disability and its prediction based on gender and memory variables. MEJDS 2019; 9 :11-11
URL: http://jdisabilstud.org/article-1-1294-en.html

Background & Objective: In elementary schools, especially in lower classes, we often encounter students who have difficulty reading, writing, counting, and other educational activities, although they are normal or near-normal levels of intelligence. Such students are not known before they go to the primary school, on the other side we know that a high percentage of children's brain develops in the first six years of life, and many neuroscientists believe that synaptic bonds in brain development at an early age are far higher than in the later periods, and in the age range of 5, It reduces a little whereas decrease in memory will cause troubles in life and may lead to impairment in reading and math. For this reason, diagnosis and rehabilitation of learning disabilities are essential before entering school. The purpose of this study was to predict learning disabilities in pre-school children.
Methods: The research method is a correlation. All students who studied at a pre-school level in one of the cities of Kerman selected as the statistical population. Using the Cochran formula, about 180 people are enough for the sample group. To avoid the fall error, 240 questionnaires distributed, of which 206 questionnaires entirely completed. The sampling method is a random cluster. The sample includes children aged between 5 years and six months to 5 years and 12 months. The individual test  run and the approximate time for each child was about two hours since five-year-old children cannot answer all the questions at one time, the test conducted in 5 sessions. The research tool to test learning failure is a visual-auditory memory test and Goodenough test, which is stable and reliable enough. Preschoolers responded to all three tests. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and logistic regression model. The examiners were eight graduates of elementary education major who had experience in kindergarten.
Results: To determine the prevalence of learning disability, children's crude scores first calculated in the test, Diagnosis of Learning failure. According to the cut-off point (a standard deviation below the mean), the number of children who scored below the cut-off point was 26 from which one of the children diagnosed with the Goodenough IQ test and interview with the border teacher. Since the total sample is 206 children, the prevalence rate is 12.13%. The average total memory scores of the normal children were 24.58±5.26, and the average total memory scores of children with learning disabilities were 18.11±5.7, respectively, and the average score of the total test of learning disabilities in children with this problem was 126.5 ± 9.91 and in normal children was 162.51±11.93. As we have seen, the mean scores of normal children in the total test of learning failure, including subscales (shape rotation, shape and field, voice recognition, numeric detection, writing letters same as patterns, visual argumentation, word meaning, symbolizing, maze, different phone(me) recognition, comprehension, auditory differentiation, completion of unfinished sentences, visual distinction), and in the memory test, which includes subscales (numerical, verbal, reversible numerical and visual), is higher than children with learning disabilities. The results of the analysis of Logistics regression showed that the effect of memory on learning disability was significant (p<0.01), but the gender effect was not significant. Two independent variables (memory and gender) have been able to explain 29% of the variation in the level of learning disability. The accuracy of the total classification of individuals was 87.7%. This accuracy is 20% for people with learning disabilities and 98.7% for normal people.
Conclusion: The results showed that this model could be used to detect the early learning disability of pre-school students, and if a child got a low score in the memory test, he would be referred to the treatment centres as soon as possible.