Identifying Sri Lankan mothers’ lived experiences of supporting a child with dyslexia: A pilot study

Abstract

Background: Dyslexia is a pattern of learning difficulties characterized by problems with accurate or fluent word recognition, poor decoding, and poor spelling abilities. Having a reading difficulty can affect children’s academic achievements as well as social success. Mothers play an important role in speech and language therapy programs especially when speech and language therapists provide reading intervention for children with dyslexia. Objectives: The main purpose of the study was to identify Sri Lankan mothers’ lived experience of supporting children with dyslexia. Methods: This research was a qualitative study. Private clinics in Sri Lanka which have clients with dyslexia-related caseloads were taken as the study settings for this study. Ten parents of 7 – 10-year-old children with dyslexia were the study population. Semi-structured interviews were conducted using an interview guide which consisted of 15 questions. Data collection interviews were conducted via telephone. Data received from the interviews were analysed using thematic analysis. Results: Three main themes have emerged from the transcripts of the interviews which are awareness about dyslexia, experience mothers face when teaching children with dyslexia, and expectations of mothers. Under the main 3 themes, eight subthemes have emerged from the collected data. Findings have shown mothers' lack of awareness and knowledge about dyslexia, the challenges, and strengths mothers face during teaching before and during the Covid 19 pandemic, and also mothers' expectations for their children. Conclusion: The current study revealed the experience mothers face when teaching a child with dyslexia. Besides, this study provides insights and information for speech and language therapists to support mothers who have children with dyslexia.