Objective@#To understand the
prevalence and distribution of
learning disabilities among middle
school students in
Beijing.@*
Methods@#By using stratified random
cluster sampling, 6 365
students in grade one and grade two of 12 public
middle schools in urban and rural in
Beijing were selected. Criteria for
learning disabilities included the following on campus healthy
students without serious physical and mental
diseases and normal IQ assessed by combined
Raven intelligence test; positive in the teacher rated
Screening Scale for Middle
School Students with
Learning Disabilities; percentile ranking (below the bottom 10% percentile of grade) of the
academic performance in the
Chinese,
mathematics and English tests.@*Results@#The
learning disabilities of the subjects were determined by the teachers and it was found that the score of words
reading,
reading understanding, words spell, written expression, number calculation, mathematical reasoning and the total score of the scale were respectively (20.78±4.00, 18.16 ±4.35, 21.50±3.89, 20.06±3.92, 21.12±5.23. 18.67±5.35, 120.28±19.99) points. There were differences in the total score of
learning ability between urban and
rural areas,
gender and grade.
Urban area was better than
rural area,
girls were better than
boys, and junior two
students were better than junior one
students( t=12.94, 9.94, 3.07, P <0.05). A total of 445(7%)
students with
learning disabilities were detected.
Reading disabilities accounted for 5.0%,
dysgraphia 2.7% and math disabilities 4.6%.
Prevalence of
learning ability differed by urban rural regions,
gender and grade, with
girls and
students from
urban areas and grade two being significantly lower( t =12.94, 9.94, 3.07, P <0.05).@*Conclusion@#The
prevalence of
learning disabilities in middle
school students is high, which
needs more
attention.