An abbreviated Chinese dyslexia screening behavior checklist for primary school students using a machine learning approach

To increase early identification and intervention of dyslexia, a prescreening instrument is critical to identifying children at risk. The present work sought to shorten and validate the 30-item Mandarin Dyslexia Screening Behavior Checklist for Primary School Students (the full checklist; Fan et al., (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic), 19, 521-527, 2021). Our participants were 15,522 Mandarin-Chinese-speaking students and their parents, sampled from classrooms in grades 2-6 across regions in mainland China. A machine learning approach (lasso regression) was applied to shorten the full checklist (Fan et al., (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic), 19, 521-527, 2021), constructing grade-specific brief checklists first, followed by a compilation of the common brief checklist based on the similarity across grade-specific checklists. All checklists (the full, grade-specific brief, and common brief versions) were validated and compared with data in our sample and an external sample (N = 114; Fan et al., (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic), 19, 521-527, 2021). The results indicated that the six-item common brief checklist showed consistently high reliability (alpha s > .82) and reasonable classification performance (about 60% prediction accuracy and 70% sensitivity), comparable to that of the full checklist and all grade-specific brief checklists across our current sample and the external sample from Fan et al., (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic), 19, 521-527, (2021). Our analysis showed that 2.42 (out of 5) was the cutoff score that helped classify children's reading status (children who scored higher than 2.42 might be considered at risk for dyslexia). Our final product is a valid, accessible, common brief checklist for prescreening primary school children at risk for Chinese dyslexia, which can be used across grades and regions in mainland China.