ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Educational Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1664437
Prevalence of Risk for Dyslexia, Risk for Dyscalculia, and Their Comorbidity in Spanish Primary Education: Gender Difference and Socioeconomic Status
Provisionally accepted
- 1Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de Málaga, Málaga, Spain
- 2Corporacion Universitaria de la Costa, Barranquilla, Colombia
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Dyslexia and dyscalculia frequently co-occur; however, population-based estimates from Spain, remain scarce. This study aims to assess the prevalence of risk for dyslexia (RDyx), risk for dyscalculia (RDC), and their comorbidity (RDyx+RDC) and to evaluate their distributions by gender and socioeconomic status. A total of 691 Spanish students in 5th–6th grade were assessed with computerized screening tasks in reading and mathematics. Risk groups were defined using a cut-off of −1 SD (16th percentile) within each domain. Prevalence was 8.5% (6.6%–10.9%) for RDyx, 4.2% (2.8%–6.0%) for RDC, and 2.0% (1.1%–3.4%) for RDyx+RDC. Comorbidity exceeded chance expectations and was asymmetrical: 48.3% of children with RDC also presented reading difficulties, while 23.7% of children with RDyx showed concurrent math difficulties. Gender effects were significant for RDC, with girls showing higher odds than boys (OR = 3.16), whereas no significant gender effect was observed for RDyx (OR = 1.56). Socioeconomic status showed a marginal effect in RDyx, but no effects were observed for RDC or comorbidity. These results provide the first population-based prevalence estimates of RDyx, RDC, and their comorbidity in Spanish primary education and underscore the value of risk-based digital screening at the school level.
Keywords: Dyslexia, Dyscalculia, Comorbidity, Socioeconomic status, gender, Prevalence, Specific learning disorders
Received: 11 Jul 2025; Accepted: 13 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Loredo, Luque, Giménez and López-Pérez. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Mariana Loredo, marianaloredo@uma.es
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