Dyslexia biomarker detection with QEEG data in children: Feasibility, Acceptability, Economic impact, Pilot Study and Survey Results

Dyslexia awareness is not high in societies. Although 10% of the population is thought to be dyslexic in every society, only 0.05 % of the population gets a formal diagnosis in Turkey. The financial situation of families of children with dyslexia is not enough to get an early diagnosis and investigate intensive rehabilitation opportunities. Mobile apps have been used to diagnose health conditions in recent years. Worldwide solutions for dyslexia do not exist as the solutions were language-dependent. We need an easily reachable, affordable, language-independent, and worldwide acceptable biomarker detection app for dyslexia at schools because it potentially helps to prevent severe consequences through an early diagnosis that helps provide early intervention. No other research assessed the feasibility and acceptability of using this mobile app to detect dyslexia at home or school. Here we present a dyslexia biomarker detection app based on Z-scored QEEG data that can be used at home or school and has accomplished a high accuracy rate in diagnosing dyslexia. The mobile app can be used at home by parents or teachers at school. We have collected data from 207 children (96 of them have dyslexia, 111 of them are typically developing) between 7-10 years old for 40 sessions on average. The data consists of the eyes-open resting state 2-minute QEEG data from 14-channels. Using the ANN machine learning method, children with dyslexia/ typically developing children (TDC) classification has been done with a high accuracy rate (98.8%). ANN yields the highest accuracy results with standardized QEEG data in the literature. A survey is created to assess the dyslexia biomarker detection app’s feasibility, acceptability, and economic impact. The results have shown that the biomarker detection app is found feasible and acceptable by families, however, it is found expensive to use at home as it includes the costly EEG headset. So, in order for this biomarker detection method to be used extensively at home, EEG headset prices should become more affordable or this dyslexia biomarker detection method can be used at schools.