Prevalence of specific developmental disorder of scholastic skill in school students in Chandigarh, India

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES: Several studies have been conducted in India to determine the prevalence of learning disabilities in school children which has been reported to be 3-10 per cent among students population. The present study was conducted to find out prevalence of specific developmental disorder of scholastic skills in students of classes VII to XII and to find out feasibility of screening tool in Chandigarh, India. METHODS: A cross-sectional study on school students was carried out in two phases. The students were drawn from classes VII to XII from 10 schools of Chandigarh, India. Details of academic performance of all the students was taken, subjectively from class teachers and objectively from the marks obtained in the last academic session. In phase I, 2402 students were assessed. In phase II, 108 students were randomly selected for evaluation for assessing sensitivity and specificity of screening proforma for teachers. A total of 124 students from phase I and all students in phase II were assessed in detail. Tests of intelligence (Malin's Intelligence Scale for Indian Children and Standard Progressive Matrices), and NIMHANS Index for specific learning disability (SLD) battery were administered. RESULTS: A total of 38 students were found to be having specific developmental disorder of scholastic skills in phase I, that gave a prevalence of 1.58 per cent. Majority had mixed type of errors on SLD battery. There were more boys diagnosed with specific learning disability. Teacher's screening instrument had high sensitivity (90.385) and specificity (94.68). INTERPRETATION & CONCLUSIONS: The findings of our study conducted in community, showed that specific learning disability was not identified even till later age. The screening instrument thus could be used by teachers to suspect students with specific learning disability.