Impact of Dental Health Education on “Specific Learning Needs” Children

Introduction: This article compares and evaluates the effect of dental health education through schoolteachers and dental health professionals to “specific learning needs” children attending special school. Materials and methods: A total of 71 “specific learning needs” children attending special school participated in the study. The baseline oral hygiene index-simplified (OHI-S) for all the participants was recorded. The training of schoolteachers was done using audiovisual and verbal methods on dental health facts and how to provide instructions on oral hygiene measures for reinforcing to the students. The students were randomly divided into three groups: Group 1 – No further dental health education by the schoolteachers or by the dental professionals was given to these students after the initial oral health education. Group 2 – In this group, the trained teachers taught students about the importance of oral health and demonstrated them brushing technique at intervals of 15 days, 1 month and 3 months. Group 3 – The dental professionals imparted dental health education and also demonstrated brushing techniques to these students at intervals of 15 days, 1 month and 3 months. Six months following the intervention a second examination was done to find out the OHI-S scores. Data analysis were done with Statistical Packages for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 16 using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) statistical test. Results: Group 2 demonstrated significant decline in OHI-S scores after intervention and all the three groups showed a statistically significant difference between the baseline OHI-S score and the scores after 6 months. Conclusion: Schoolteachers can be utilized for reinforcing dental health education among “specific learning needs” children effectively. How to cite this article: Relwani AH, Kiran S, Bhatt R, Patel M. Impact of Dental Health Education on “Specific Learning Needs” Children. Int J Clin Pediatr Dent 2016;9(1):31-34.