ISSN: 2225-8329
Open access
The prevalence of dyslexia cases has been increasing worldwide. Issues related to dyslexia have led to a more complex role and experience of caregivers in taking care of their children with dyslexia as compared to caregivers with normal children. Caregivers of children with dyslexia are often reported to have higher stress in parenting compared to parents with normal children. This study explored stigma and mental health challenges of caregivers of children with dyslexia. A small homogenous sample of six caregivers participated in an individual one-off, semi-structured interview. The thematic analysis identified the challenges faced by the caregivers of children with dyslexia, which are the aspects of stigma and mental health. Stigma has been extracted into two themes, which are lack of knowledge and judgement. While mental health challenges can also be categorized into two themes; distressful role and negative emotions. This study highlights that most of the caregivers experienced stigma and expressed psychological challenges in parenting a child with dyslexia. Future research, therefore, could expand these findings across wider demographic samples to further validate these findings and inform the development of relevant support services to assist caregivers in the long difficult journey of parenting a child with dyslexia in Malaysia.
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