Online dyslexia screening test for Malaysian young adults in Bahasa Melayu

Identifying potentially dyslexics among Malaysian young adults could be a difficult task. This is due to lack of awareness about the impacts of dyslexia to young adults, and partly because of the current dyslexia awareness programs in Malaysia are mainly focused on the intervention program for children with dyslexia. Therefore, through this study an online dyslexia-screening test known as MaDIST was developed in Bahasa Melayu targeting the Malaysian young adults. Related study shows that reading assessment is crucial in diagnosing potentially dyslexic among young adults. The development of MaDIST is part of the preliminary work to gather data about dyslexia among young adults in Malaysia — at present, there is lack of accessible data about prevalence dyslexia among the young adults. Despite the fact that many of young adults have been able to overcome their difficulties but most of them describe their childhood experience as ‘growing up in shame and blame’. This has significantly affected their self-esteem and life opportunities in a long term — although related studies indicate that dyslexic are gifted with profound talents in various fields such as arts, businesses and science. Future work from this study aims to assist Malaysian young adults with dyslexia to overcome their difficulties in life especially in studies by providing them with more information on learning strategies and intervention programs about dyslexia in Malaysia.