Prevalence of Non-Verbal Learning Disorder in Male Students in Karaj City

The non-verbal learning disorder is considered as a specific syndrome in learning, even in reasoning. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of non-verbal learning disorder in primary school male students in Karaj City.

In this descriptive-analytic study, a stratified sampling method was used to select 286 male students who were studying in the 4th, 5th and 6th grades of primary schools in Karaj City. All students were individually assessed by using Children Non-Verbal Learning Disabilities Scale. Then, 8 students who got 30 points and higher in the Scale were diagnosed at-risk to non-verbal learning disorder. They were individually assessed by Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (3rd revision). Five male students (including 3 persons in 4th and 2 persons in 6th grade respectively) were diagnosed as having non-verbal learning disorder which their verbal intelligence quotient was differed 10 points and higher from their practical intelligence quotient and got 85 points and higher for the total intelligence quotient. Data were analyzed by Mann-Whitney U test using SPSS (version 22).

The results showed that 1.8% of male students have nonverbal learning disorder. In fact, 2.6% and 2.4% of male students in 4th and 6th grades were diagnosed with nonverbal learning disorder respectively.

Regarding to almost high prevalence of non-verbal learning disorder in students, we can accomplish early training interventions and providing professional services to prevent ongoing behavioral and academic, and probably occupation problems in them.