Reliability & validity of Dyslexia screening test in the Malay Language (Bahasa Malaysia)

Abstract

Reading, writing and arithmetic are the most fundamental academic skills that are expected to be mastered by children in their primary education. Unfortunately, it is estimated by the Malaysian Government that in 2010, about 15% of Year 1 students did not acquire the necessary literacy skills after one year formal instructions in school. To a certain extent, the failure of these children in mastering necessary academic skills is due to sociocultural and environmental factors. However, some of these individuals are suffering from a type of neuropsychological deficit, developmental dyslexia. Children living with dyslexia often struggle to read, spell and write at acceptable level. Since dyslexics did not present obvious physical limitations, their unexpected poor academic skills have been commonly misunderstood as 'lazy', 'stubborn' or 'stupid'. Also, previous researches have suggested association between reading difficulties and criminal behaviours in adulthood. While accurate diagnostic assessments and evaluations are the foundation of intervention, most of the dyslexia screening tools available in Malay language were not validated. This project is aimed to validate of the adapted version of Dyslexia Screening Test Bahasa Malaysia (DSTBM) with the intention of making the instrument available for teachers, psychologists and healthcare professionals in Malaysia. A total of 501 eight-year-old children from five Sekolah Kebangsaan in Klang Valley participated in this project. Seventy six children (15.2%) were recognised as 'at-risk', and were invited to the Health Psychology Clinic of UKM for diagnostic assessments. Feedbacks of the diagnostic assessments were given to parents. Assistance is also provided to the identified dyslexics for educational placement and intervention planning. Challenges faced in this project including lack of awareness and knowledge of dyslexia among parents and school teachers of the participants and hence raise the drop-out rate, and limited human resources for diagnostic assessments. The DSTBM has demonstrated good psychometric properties. The internal consistency of all 11 subtests in DSTBM is 0.792. Inter-subtests correlations were computed. All subtests were correlated at p>0.01 level except Bead Threading and Postural Stability. Exploratory factor analysis has been carried out to establish the validity with two factor models emerged. The first factor contains One Minute Reading, Two Minute Spelling, Phonemic Segmentation, One Minute Writing, Nonsense passage reading, Backward Digit Span. The second factor loads Rapid Naming, Verbal Fluency and Semantic fluency. As Bead Threading and Postural Stability do not correlate with other subtests they were not included in the factor analysis. Finally, in line with Ministry of Education's Literacy and Numeracy Program (LINUS), DSTBM could be a useful tool for teachers to determine whether a student who did not pass LINUS screening test at the end of Year 1 (Hardcore LINUS) would need further evaluation by clinical psychologist and other health professionals.