Temperament Analysis of Children at Risk of Specific Learning Disorder: A Cross-sectional Observational Study

Background: Temperament dimensions in children may affect how they experience their academic requirements. Children at risk of specific learning disorder (SLD) show oppositional behavior and reluctance to learn. Aims: The present study aims to determine the temperament of children at risk of SLD. Materials and Methods: The findings in this study is obtained from the baseline data of a larger clinical trial to study the scope of integrating Homoeopathy with the Response-to-intervention model, in children-at-risk for SLD. Three parents withdrew consent, so the final analysis included scores from 137 children. The temperament scores recorded during the history taking were compared with those of typically developing children, and classified into functional typologies: easy, slow-to-warm-up child, and difficult, domain-wise, as well as the overall frequency. Results: The temperament analysis of 137 students aged 5–7 years diagnosed as at risk of SLD showed statistically significant differences ( P < 0.001) in the mean scores of the temperament factors such as sociability, emotionality, energy, and distractability compared to those of typically developing children. However, for the rhythmicity factor, the mean score in children was not significantly different from that of typically developing children. 39.7% of the functional typology belonged to the “easy child,” 43.1% to “slow-to-warm-up,” and 17.2% to “difficult child,” depicting that most children at risk of SLD belonged to the “slow-to-warm-up” child typology. Conclusion: Children at risk of SLD were more sociable and emotional, with high energy and lower attentivity and rhythmicity. The majority of the children belonged to the slow-to-warm-up child functional typology.