The Association Between Childhood Physical Abuse and Dyslexia: Findings From a Population-Based Study

The objective of this study was to determine the relationship between a history of dyslexia and childhood physical abuse in a large population-based epidemiological sample. It was hypothesized that the prevalence of dyslexia would be significantly higher in individuals who reported a childhood history of physical abuse in comparison to those who did not report such a history. A secondary analysis examined data from respondents 18 years and older from the Saskatchewan and Manitoba sample of the 2005 Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS). There were 13,640 respondents ages 18 and older. Due to missing data, the final sample size was 13,054 respondents. One third (34.8%) of respondents who reported they had been physically abused during their childhood or adolescence also reported being diagnosed with dyslexia in comparison with 7.2% of those who did not report being physically abused (p < .001). Initial adjustments for sociodemographic variables produced an odds ratio (OR) for dyslexia that was more than 7 times higher (OR = 7.09; 95% confidence interval [CI] = [4.42, 11.35]) for those who had reported being physically abused in comparison with their peers who did not report such a history; with additional adjustments for other adverse childhood experiences, these odds decreased only slightly to 6.09 times higher (95% CI = [3.58, 10.35]). Further research is needed to understand the mechanism linking physical abuse and dyslexia.