The Department of Statistics and Community Development (DSCD) is conducting the learning difficulties survey to identify key challenges that face students with learning difficulties in Sharjah’s elementary schools. The survey is being conducted in collaboration with the Sharjah Center for Learning Difficulties (SCLD).

The survey sheds light on families’ and teachers’ awareness of the challenges that face students with dyslexia including the symptoms of learning difficulties like the challenges in key psychological and intellectual operations which encompass attention, perception and cognition, memorisation, understanding and language skills. It also seeks to analyse the relationship between children’s pedagogic, educational and social environment on the one hand and the possibility of having learning difficulties.

The focus of the survey is the role and impact of early diagnosis and intervention on helping children who have learning difficulties, and the services they need for the treatment of cognitive skills as well as sensory, motor and behaviour functions, in addition to speech therapy.

The survey seeks to provide accurate reliable information and official statistical data through measuring parents’ awareness of learning difficulties, and the level of knowledge teachers and education experts in Sharjah’s public and private schools have about those difficulties. The data will help in creating SCLD development plans in the future.

Special questionnaires are being distributed to parents of school students, teachers and education experts in different public and private schools across Sharjah. The survey sample comprises of 1496 parents, 363 teachers and 157 education experts.

Sheikh Sultan bin Abdullah Al Qasimi, Director of the DSCD, underscored that the survey is important because it addresses a vibrant question about the right of students with learning difficulties to access quality educational and pedagogical environment. He pointed out that the results will be a significant step towards the creation of mechanisms, which are based upon precise data, to create future plans that reinforces SCLD operations.

Sheikh Sultan bin Abdullah Al Qasimi applauded the collaboration between the DSCD, Sharjah’s relevant entities and the target groups of respondents, noting that this cooperation contributes to supporting the community development process in the emirate by providing decision-makers, researchers, and experts with the needed data.

The Director of the DSCD called on the survey respondents to collaborate with the DSCD team and facilitate their mission through offering the needed information, stressing that confidentiality of all data which is protected by federal laws and will only be utilised for statistical purposes.

The survey features several questions on different challenges that face children with learning difficulties, whether the students’ educational and socio-economic environment, the educational programmes and tools used in the learning process or children’s mental, intellectual and cognitive capabilities.

The SCLD aims to ensure that people with learning difficulties have a decent life through a plethora of services like early diagnosis and intervention, family mentorship programs, specialised educational programmes, training, as well as educational, social and psychological counselling. It supports educational institutions and offers training to the education sector personnel. It also enables distinguished people with learning difficulties to achieve success in all aspects of life.