Exploring Parental Perception and Teacher Sensitisation to Specific Learning Disorder: Current Trends and Future Strategies in Indian Perspectives

Abstract

Over the past few decades, National Education Boards (ICSE & CBSE) and various state governments have explicitly been awarded privileges and provisions to accommodate Specific Learning Disability (SLD), an unseen handicap. However, awareness of SLD has steadily risen in India. Nonetheless, the vast majority of people in general, particularly parents and teachers, continue to lack awareness. The study aims to assess the parents' understanding and primary school teacher's sensitisation about learning disabilities with occupational therapy principles and strategies. Following the quantitative methodology, we have chosen purposive sampling and required 100 parents and 100 teachers from the general community. A mobile-based application consisted of 14 questions in which general questions are 4 and main questions are 10 to assess the understanding and sensitisation regarding Specific Learning Disability. The development and the design of the Learning Disability ONE App directly revealed the result that the teachers and parents have below average knowledge in 8 out of 10 questions, especially in those questions that are related to the symptoms and are intervention-based. The study concluded that the teachers and parents had poor understanding and sensitisation regarding Specific Learning Disability. Whereas in female teachers have a higher knowledge compared to male teachers about Learning Disability.