Abstract

Background: The incidence of dyslexia in Indian primary school children had been reported to be 2-18%, dysgraphia 14%, and dyscalculia 5.5%. India is thought to have approximately 90 million people with varying degrees of Learning Disabilities and an average class in school has about five students with Learning Disabilities. A recent news article in Times of India states that dyslexia is the most common learning disability with nearly 35 million children suffering from it.

A study conducted in Haridwar, India (2015), showed that 67% of teachers had no knowledge of LDs. Overall, teacher educators who participated in that study had a low level of knowledge about SLDs, irrespective of their gender or teaching experience.

Objective: The aim of the study was to assess the effectiveness of self-instructional module on “Identification and care of children with Selected Learning Disabilities” in terms of knowledge and attitude of primary school teachers in selected schools of Delhi.

Hypothesis: H1: The mean post-test knowledge score of primary school teachers will be significantly higher than their mean pre-test knowledge score after the administration of self-instructional module on identification and care of children with Selected Learning Disabilities as evident from a structured knowledge questionnaire at 0.05 level of significance.

H2: The mean post-test attitude score of school teachers will be significantly higher than their mean pre-test attitude score after the administration of self-instructional module on identification and care of children with Selected Learning Disabilities as evident from structured Likert scale at 0.05 level of significance.

Methodology: Quantitative, pre experimental research approach with one group pre-test post-test design was used to assess the knowledge and attitude of primary school teachers through 63 primary school teachers as samples working in selected primary schools of Delhi, by using purposive sampling technique.

The data was collected using structured knowledge questionnaire and structured attitude likert scale.

Result: There was a significant difference in level of knowledge and attitude of primary school teachers after administration of self-instruction module on identification and care of children with Selected Learning Disabilities as evident from the increase in mean of knowledge and attitude score.

Self-instructional module on “Identification and care of children with Selected Learning Disabilities” was found to be effective in enhancing the knowledge and improving the attitude of primary school teachers as evident from the ‘t’ value at 0.05 level of significance.

Conclusion and recommendation: This study showed that less than half of the participants had achieved continuum of care and education level, both respondents and husband occupation, parity, autonomy to health care decision, exposure to the mass media, and wontedness of pregnancy were associated with completion of maternity continuum of care, therefore working on enhancing of the capacity of women autonomy in health care decision making and preventing unintended pregnancy helps to improve completion of maternity continuum of care.

Keywords: Dyslexia; Dysgraphia; Dyscalculia; Knowledge; Attitude