KUALA LUMPUR: A local study has found that 51.4 per cent of male juvenile offenders are affected by dyslexia.
The first of its kind study, conducted by National Organisation for Dyslexia Malaysia (NOD) founder and president Dr Mullai Ramaiah and Universiti Kebangsaaan Malaysia criminologist, Associate Prof Dr Rahim Mohammad Kamaludin involved 109 respondents from the Prisons Department, Puncak Alam Correctional Centre and the Henry Gurney school in Melaka.
Mullai said she was persuaded to conduct the study after her retirement because of her concern on the high dropout rate in Malaysia's national schools and the continuous reports of juvenile crime.
The study sought to find the link betwen dyslexia and delinquency and found that many of the respondents had severe learning difficulties, negative emotions, internalising and externalising behaviours, negative school experiences, low self-esteem and self-fulfiling prophecies that lured them into crime.
"Among our key findings was that 51.4 per cent of the male juvenile offenders were affected by dyslexia, thus being overrepresented in the prison population.
"We also found a significant relationship between dyslexia and low self-esteem. Low self-esteem was largely due to undiagnosed dyslexia which resulted from non-intervention.
"Abetment of psychosocial factors such as home, school, peers and community, led these adolescents into a criminogenic pathway," said Mullai, who was formerly an associate professor in University Malaya's Faculty of Languages and Linguistics.
She said a host of recommendations have been given to the Education Ministry to among others conduct early screening and intervention, and implement phonics education across the school system.
Phonics education is a way of teaching children how to read and write by helping them to hear, identify, and use different sounds that distinguish one word from another in the English language.
She also stressed the need for an inclusive education system for dyslexic students.
"No child should be left behind because he or she cannot read, because language is programmed in each child.
"Dyslexic children access language through a different channel in their brains, therefore, they require a different teaching approach.
"Half the battle is won if only we realise that the traditional approach will not help.
"NOD Malaysia's main objective is to make possible a Malaysia where no child drops out of school for not being able to read," she added.