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Talk; Adults

Thursday stream 5 Session 09.00 - 11.10 Length 25 minutes

The pattern of personality in dyslexic children and adults: the invisible symptoms and the effects they produce

Gerald Hales

Consultant Psychologist and Clinical Hypnotherapist, Milton Keynes, England enquiry@drhales.co.uk

Abstract

At the first International Conference data was reported relating to the structure of the Personality profiles of dyslexic people (Hales 1990). More than ten years have passed since then the research has continued, examining in detail the responses of adults and children in relation to personality components. This paper presents an up-to-date picture of the latest results which is valuable information for anyone involved in making provision for dyslexic people. Some elements have changed some have not; both are useful in considering the position of dyslexic people. It is clear that there is still a marked negative effect of dyslexia on young children, although some adults seem to be able to cope quite well. There are still differences between males and females and the overall profile of the subjects suggests that we still need to address the position of those approaching transfer to secondary school. More students are participating in Higher Education, which means that of necessity there are more dyslexic students and the results are discussed in terms of the provision they require. The paper shows clearly that it is most important that in the education and literacy developments we do not lose sight of the personal problems dyslexic people meet in society. We diminish what may be gained if we treat the dyslexia, but fail adequately to support and assist the dyslexic individual. Reference Personality Aspects of Dyslexia (1990). In G Hales [ed] Meeting points in Dyslexia (Proceedings of the first International Conference on Dyslexia, Bath, 1989). Reading: British Dyslexia Association.

Introduction

At the first International Conference data was presented from investigations into the structure of the Personality profiles of dyslexic people (Hales 1990). One of the significant aspects of those results was the raised level of anxiety and the reduced level of self-confidence which was apparent in the dyslexic subjects. There is increasing recognition of these personal elements in the dyslexic individual, together with developing understanding about the frustration which creates them.

One particular area of frustration relates to those dyslexic people who have good ability and intelligence, but whose potential has been circumscribed because they have not received appropriate support and teaching or training. This leads to situations where they are treated as if they are less intelligent, or less capable, than they really are. However, this situation can be compounded by the fact that as time passes they are less likely to perform at the level that should be expected from their innate ability.

The relationship between actual performance and elements relating to an individual's self-concept is increasingly being recognised as important. Enhancing someone's self-esteem is not, of itself, a solution to difficulties engendered by academic failure (Muijs, 1997). However, academic self-concept and academic achievement are strong predictors of one another, indicating that self-concept is a significant element of the components of an individual that relate to success. There is a significant change when this situation is considered in the realm of reading skills and behaviour, though, suggesting that the perceived importance of this range of skills is felt differently. Chapman and Tunmer (1997) state that

the emergence of a relationship between a specific facet of achievement-related self-perceptions (reading self-concept) and actual achievement behaviour (reading) occurs sooner than other researchers have observed for more general achievement-related self-perceptions and performance outcomes.

(Chapman and Tunmer, 1997)

These elements are not understood sufficiently well to say what part they play in the developing pattern of survival in children. It is well established, though, that children with specific speech and language difficulties have an enhanced likelihood of associated emotional and behavioural difficulties (Lindsay and Dockrell, 1997).

Nobody makes smooth and constant progress in education. Everyone has have 'good periods' and 'bad periods' so that there are times when learning moves on more efficiently and swiftly as well as times when progress is much slower. However, the overall pattern is one of development- and this is just as true of dyslexic people as it is of everyone else. However, the rate of progress may be slower, so we hypothesise that the trend over time is likely t be as represented in Figure 1:

Many testing procedures in psychology and education rely on comparisons with the expectation for an average person of equivalent age. This leads to the 'discrepancy' model of ability, where the size of the difference between

a) performance observed or measured, and
b) performance expected

is taken as a valid indicator of the individual's position. However, it is clear that if we measure the dyslexic child's apparent ability by constant reference to the age-norm at the time of testing, their scores will become relatively lower and they will appear to be gradually progressing backwards. As long ago as 1974 a report on dyslexia by the British Council stated

dyslexia can affect performance on standard IQ tests and produce misleading results.

(Kershaw, 1974)

Also, this situation does not take account of the fact that education is a cumulative process. Most of the skills we learn are, once learned, required to be used in order to learn new skills. This is particularly true of basic skills such as reading, writing, spelling and number. If a dyslexic child is in this position, then it may be that their actual pattern of progress may become more as shown in Figure 2:

This means that as time progresses there is an increasing likelihood of dyslexic people producing low scores on tests of intelligence, suggesting lower levels of ability, understanding and comprehension. Actually, the low scores are produced because of a lack of knowledge. This lack of knowledge is created by an inability to acquire it, rather than an inability to understand it, so although the testing may be carried out perfectly properly and although the results might seem perfectly clear, in reality the dyslexic individual's situation is not as it seems.

Subjects

Subjects were selected on criteria relating to their pattern of performance on specific intelligence tests. This meant that it was not possible to control for elements such as age or sex. Indeed, part of the research paradigm was to facilitate the examination of the structure of the sample that transpired.

The procedure was to include as subjects those who conformed to the selection criteria during one year (2000). The criteria involved those who, during assessment, demonstrated different score patterns and levels of achievement between their scores on a conventional intelligence battery (WISC or WAIS) and their scores on a Cattell Culture Fair test. There was an expectation derived from observation that individuals in this position were likely to be affected by non-educational aspects of their dyslexia and that this situation would produce data on a personality measure because of their deviation from normal expectation. This specification process elicited 84 subjects.

Previous work (Hales 1990) established that, while the work appeared to confirm that there were more males affected by dyslexia than females, there was a strong indication that in terms of non-educational parameters, such as personality, self-esteem and anxiety, the females were more significantly affected. It was interesting, therefore, that the result of carrying out the selection procedure in the manner described was that there were more females in the final sample than males and this pattern continued through the sample except for the adults. The distribution was as indicated in Table 1:

The age ranges represented are in Table 2:

Cattell Personality Measures

As in the earlier research, in order to establish a reliable measure of personality factors the Cattell Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire and its derivatives were used. This was utilised for two major reasons:

1. it has derivative procedures which may be used at younger ages and yet which produce comparable data.
2. It is the tool used in the original research into personality and dyslexia, permitting comparisons to be made.

The various versions used were as in Table 3:

The test construction establishes results for each subject on a number of factors, the result on each of which indicates the extent to which the subject is the same as, or different from, the expected norm for people of the same age. Since variation can be in either direction, these scores are presented as bi-polar scales with a 'neutral' point in the middle. As they are norm-referenced tests, with an established body of data demonstrating the expected population scores, it is unnecessary to run a control group for this particular study.

The full range of factors does not appear in every version of the test, although the majority are always present. The distribution of the factors is shown in Table 4, together with an indication of their bi-polar aspects:

Table 4: Personality factors included in tests

The factors are not linked in the sense that the design expects the 'average' person to achieve a straight line down the middle. Although it is true that the majority of people score in the middle of the range on any given factor, no one person scores within the middle range on every factor. In this everyone obtains a profile, with the profile being regarded as descriptive, with no scores regarded as indicating abnormality.

Culture-Fair testing

Where anyone suffers from information processing difficulties the situation means that there is a risk that the pattern of difficulty may interfere with some aspects of conventional testing procedures and thereby produce results which do not properly represent the dyslexic person's real level of potential. Such a situation is highly likely to generate frustration in the individual, the more so since the underlying higher level of ability remains invisible- and therefore is not addressed.

This was considered in the present study by the additional use of a Culture Fair Intelligence Test. The underlying principles have been recognised for a long time and were originally described by Cattell many years ago (Cattell 1940, 1941). This procedure involves language only for the purpose of giving the instructions: no reading, no writing and no words are necessary in order to carry out the tasks required. The elements of the tasks involve the mental manipulation of concepts and answers are given by use of a visually representative multiple-choice format.

This type of methodology measures individual intelligence in a manner designed to reduce, as much as possible, the influence of aspects such as verbal fluency, cultural climate or educational level. Such an approach accepts that intelligence is only one element of a larger set of individual attributes that must be considered when we try to understand the human behaviour of the whole person. The procedure attempts to make a cleaner separation of natural ability from specific learning and thus permit a better analysis and prediction of the individual's ultimate potential.

Where there is a contrast between results using this procedure and those obtained on conventional tests the difference is likely to be important. This is because the conventional battery uses the types of skills which are normally the ones regarded as representing 'intelligence' as well as being those most commonly forming part of normal education. This situation means the individual's performance on a number of types of standardised test should be regarded as suspect in terms of how much they are able to produce a fair estimate of the true level of ability.

There were notable differences between the Wechsler IQ figures and the Culture-Fair figure in the cases reported here. The difference was maintained whether the Verbal, Performance or Full-scale Wechsler IQ was used. Variation in the pattern of scores over time was similar between the two methods of testing, but the Culture-Fair results were always considerably higher. The data indicate that lower scores are obtained in the secondary age-range than those seen at either earlier or later ages, both of which were almost identical. This may be seen most vividly when plotted as shown in Figure 3:

Although the pattern of a fall followed by a recovery is consistent, there are interesting differences in the way the Verbal and Performance scores behave in this shifting picture, however. In examining the way in which the scores dip and then recover, the Verbal score starts as the highest in the junior children and finishes as the lowest in the adults. The Performance score does exactly the opposite, starting as the lowest in the junior children and finishing as the highest for the adults. This is recorded in Figure 4.

The differences between the three types of measure are not large, so it would be easy to read too much into these data. However, we must remember that the verbal score provides an indication of verbal comprehension, including the ability to use verbal skills in reasoning and solving problems, as well as the capacity to learn verbal material and apply knowledge in logical and structured ways. It is also the verbal scores that correlates most highly with the bulk of normal educational work and the requirements that lead to success in conventional examinations. If, therefore, this aspect of a dyslexic individual's ability diminishes as he or she passes into increasingly difficult levels of education the situation is likely to create a degree of difficulty.

Differences between measures of intelligence

The difference between the Culture-Fair figure and the Full-Scale Wechsler IQ amounted, overall, to 13.25 IQ points. Variation by age-group showed that the differences were most pronounced for the adults. Once again, though, we see that the scores were higher at first, decreased into secondary age ranges and then increased again afterwards. This mirrors the drop in absolute scores at secondary ages seen above (see Figure 5).

There were other differences between the adults and younger people. The size of the differences between the Wechsler and Culture-Fair scores was considerably smaller for the females during school days, but increased to almost the same level as the males once they reached adulthood, as shown in Figure 6:

The Dyslexia Index

Any condition varies in its level of severity between people and dyslexia is no exception. So there are some people whose level of difficulty is enormously severe, others who find it little more than a nuisance and a vast range of variation in between. It has always been difficult to allocate a precise level to a particular individual, specifying exactly 'how much' they are dyslexic, because so many factors affect how we all learn and work including several which are highly individual and are completely different from person to person.

Despite this, some indication would clearly be extremely useful. Turner (1997) proposed a model for considering the question of severity of the level of dyslexia. This incorporated the major aspects he considered essential, utilising ability, achievement and diagnostic measures. The procedure Turner developed produces a Dyslexia Index which is evaluated for severity as in Table 5:

Table 5: Categorisations in the Dyslexia Index

In practice, this Index may be conceived as a personal measure which indicates the level of severity of the practical effect of dyslexia for the individual. This is not quite the same as whether their dyslexia is 'bad' or not, but rather provides an estimate of the degree to which it interferes with what would have been their possible level of potential without it. The Index gives an indication of how severe the effect of dyslexia is in an individual's particular situation.

A dyslexia index was calculated for the subjects in this study. Overall this was found to be 1.22, which relates to the above scale as shown in Figure 7:

< Below 0.0	0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4	0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9	1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4	1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9	2.0 Above 2.0 >
Not Dyslexic	A little dyslexic	Mild Dyslexia	Moderate Dyslexia	Severe Dyslexia	Very severeDyslexia

Figure 7: Overall level of the Dyslexia Index

As with other results in this study, the severity of the effect as measured by this index was most pronounced for the adults, as shown in Figure 8:

< Below 0.0	0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4	0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9	1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4	1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9	2.0 Above 2.0 >
Not Dyslexic	A little dyslexic	Mild Dyslexia	Moderate Dyslexia	Severe Dyslexia	Very severeDyslexia
	Junior 0.44	Senior 0.79			Adult 2.43

Figure 8: Levels of the Dyslexia Index by age range

Effects not related to achievement

It does not require a deep knowledge of psychological processes to understand that the situation described above is likely to be extremely frustrating to dyslexic individuals in that position. They are likely to be intellectually under-stimulated and not given full and appropriate opportunities to develop and progress. Data from parents suggests that and any claim on the part of either child or parent that education is pitched at an inappropriate level stands a good chance of being received with disbelief and possibly derision (Hales 2001). There is strong support for a hypothesis that this type of experience will have a substantial effect on such aspects of personal growth as anxiety, neuroticism, self-esteem and confidence

Difference by age-group

The pattern of results indicates the way in which the effects change as time passes and individuals mature. There is a clear progression through the stages of educational experience in a way which makes the effects more substantial for the adult ages than it is for the younger people.

Tension measures the extent to which the individual is tense in the sense of feeling or being frustrated and overwrought. For the dyslexic subjects the scores on this component rise from being below the average for the junior school children to just about average for those in the secondary age range. However, they continue to rise at the same rate and therefore become noticeably above average for the adults.

Apprehension is a measure that demonstrates the extent to which an individual is insecure or worrying, as opposed to being self-assured, untroubled and self-satisfied. The results on this component follow the same type of pattern of trend as that seen above, but here the rate of change diminishes as we move into adulthood.

On the other hand the degree of Anxiety performs in the opposite manner, rising more steeply as the individual matures. As well as rising over time, we note that this measure is never below average for the sample of dyslexic people.

The above factors measure elements of an individual's personality profile that may be considered to be negative, in the sense that they would generally be regarded as undesirable traits. We note that these undesirable aspects rise as age increases, implying that certain aspects of the dyslexic individual's position becomes worse rather than better. We may establish a balance to this by considering the behaviour of those factors that might be considered to be positive or desirable; if we have identified a genuine underlying measure of the true position of the dyslexic subjects then the expectation is that scores on these components will fall.

Commencing by consideration of a measure of conscientiousness, this inversion of the above picture is precisely what is discovered. The results show that the level of conscientiousness is relatively low for all the dyslexic subjects, but by adulthood it is very low indeed.

This picture is reinforced by the result from the measure of stability. This element relates to emotional stability or the ability to face reality calmly. This is considered to be in opposition to the trait of emotionality, or someone who is easily affected by feelings. The dyslexic subjects were never above the average on this measure, indicating that they are less likely to react calmly anyway, but as with the other aspects, the level of this type of stability also reduces over time, with the adults producing low scores.

There is one pattern that, at first sight, appears to counteract this consistent pattern of change. The measure of Independence shows a rise over time, so that the adults appear to be more independent than the younger children. Considered in the context of the other score patterns found, his result might be considered to be an anomaly.

Partly this progression may reflect a pattern of maturity, including delayed maturity, for we note that even at its highest, this score only just reaches above the norm for the population. Many parents and teachers report that dyslexic children tend to be 'immature', 'slow in developing' or 'young for their age' and we may hypothesise that this may be an decision (unknown to them) taken by their unconscious. It would not be unreasonable or surprising if, in order to cope with the sheer amount of extra effort required in moving through developing life as a dyslexic person, some flexibility is required in order to provide the extra space and effort needed for the additional achievement. It would not be surprising, therefore, to see that the dyslexic brain gives less attention to these developmental aspects than it does to the constant task of coping with the difficulty in everyday life.

However, we must also bear in mind that this change in the level of independence may also reflect a different need: the necessity for the dyslexic individual to become more independent, more self-reliant and possibly more aggressive in ensuring that their needs stand any chance of being met in a non-dyslexic- and frequently unsympathetic- world.

Differences between the sexes

In the original research paper (Hales, 1990, ibid.) it was reported that there appeared to be a more profound effect of being dyslexic on the females. This finding is replicated in this present investigation and in some formulations of the data it appears to be even more obvious.

We have already seen that in the measure of Tension, all the scores rise over time, but whereas the rate of increase in the males begins to become a little less prominent, the opposite is true of the females. All dyslexic people become more tense as time goes by, but the rate of change increases for the females and slows for the males.

This pattern is also readily observed in the progression of the scores on the factor of Apprehension. Here the male pattern diminishes to the extent that it begins to level off, but the female pattern continues to rise with an unchanging rate of development.

If we consider the measure of Anxiety we find, once again, that among the adults the females are more anxious than the males by the time they reach adulthood. It is interesting to see here that the level of anxiety in the girls falls during junior education, which is not the case with the boys. However, during secondary level educational experience the level of anxiety in the females rises again so that the women finish higher than the men.

Some of the aspects considered in this project looked at elements that were not necessarily of direct bearing on the effects of the individual's situation on learning, but were important in terms of the overall position and behavioural and mental health of the individual. This category included such components as Stability.

This was found to fall over time in the male dyslexic subjects, but for the females there was a recovery. The females were initially at a lower point than the males and it fell slightly faster during junior education, but from secondary levels onwards the females level of stability rose until by adulthood everyone both groups were at the same point. This trend must be taken in the context, however, that all dyslexic subjects fell from the average level and were considerably lower than the norm by the time they reached adult years.

In the 1990 paper (Hales, 1990) it was reported that among adults there was a high score on Dominance. Although this often indicates a degree of assertiveness and independent-mindedness, there is research suggesting that it shows people who are solemn, unconventional and rebellious (Cattell et al, 1970). This finding was interpreted as considering that the move away from the relative support of school and college environments, into the less comfortable context of adult work and life, required a degree of assertiveness and stubbornness that was necessary in order to ensure that the effects of dyslexia do not create an insuperable disadvantage.

In this present study, too, we find a rising pattern of Independence, although it must be borne in mind that these scores start low and rise only to the normally-average level. We also see that during the transition from secondary education to adult life there is a change in that the males' level of independence accelerates, while the females' falls almost back to the original level.

Conclusion

The results confirm the general trend of the findings of the 1990 paper with some refinements that inform our understanding of the relationship between dyslexia and the individual. This research considered, of course, a specific group of dyslexic people- those who were found during assessment to have different patterns and scores between a conventional intelligence battery and the Cattell Culture Fair test.

This group of dyslexic people were the most likely to have been treated as less capable than was actually the case. One likely hypothesis is that these subjects therefore were at greater risk of feeling frustrated, believing that they were being unfairly treated and experiencing a degree of intellectual boredom. This latter arises where an individual is provided with a level of academic stimulation that is appropriate to the perceived level of ability, but is in fact at a more simplistic level than is actually required. Such a situation is likely to increase the high level of stress frequently produced by dyslexia. This can be sufficient to engender behaviour which is not only extravagant, but also out of context. Dodd (1995) reports the following:

Margaret's frustration finally snapped whilst doing a national curriculum test. She couldn't do it but could have no help and she had an outburst in which she threw the textbook, chair and desk at the headmaster who was taking the class.

(Dodd, 1995)

We often see manifestations of an assumption that as people pass through the years of education they develop specific skills which enable them to cope with whatever problem they have. This is seen in the procedure that many disabled people (including children) are expected to know what to do in order to solve the difficulties they have. In dyslexia there is an expectation that dyslexic people will generally 'learn to cope' and if, by the later years in education, they cannot do so very well then it is really rather their own fault. The results we see here show that some aspects of life most certainly become worse rather than better and support and assistance cannot be assumed to be elements that will gradually fade away from the requirements of provision.

This is a significant point when we consider that many dyslexic school pupils become students when they leave school or soon after. Generally speaking there is a perception among dyslexic people and their families that they receive a better level of provision and care from college than they do from schools (Hales, 2001). However, this does not always carry over into university study, where they are once again beset by the expectation that if they have managed to reach that level, then they ought to be able to cope. It is clear from the data presented here, however, that there is a developing effect on dyslexic people in many ways that carries on into adult life and is likely to need to be taken into account for considerably longer than is often recognised or expected.

The 1990 research data demonstrated that there was a greater effect on the female dyslexic subjects than on the males. There was, though, the commonly-found distribution of numbers in that the males outnumbered the females by about 3:1. It is interesting that in the specific group of dyslexic people that took part in this study there are more females than males. There is a suggestion here that it is more common for female dyslexic people to be in the situation specified by this research, that of having a mis-represented level of intelligence as demonstrated by conventional testing procedures. This suggests that we may have the situation that the girls and women are more hard-done-by than the boys and men, a context that thereby develops a higher potential for among them for there to be an effect on the non-academic aspects of their situation. We already seen that in terms of ability components the differences between the Culture Fair IQ scores and Wechsler Full Scale IQ scores were smaller for females than for males dung school years (Figure 6), but the effects of their position on the personality components appears to be more pronounced.

There is currently an improved and improving understanding of the need to consider the personal and integrative needs of dyslexic people. However, this is often set within the context of specific counselling for those who are seen to have 'personal difficulties'. The results of this study suggest that many of those who are vulnerable in this way are not, in fact, obvious and therefore do not receive appropriate help and assistance. The dyslexic individual is still the person he or she always was, with the same natural talents, aptitudes and life possibilities. However, those of us who are professionals or who make provision for dyslexic people need to give much more thought to the depth and complexity of what we provide in order to preserve, develop and enhance those talents. We must support dyslexic people in every way so that they become not just coping and capable but whole, coping and capable.

References

Cattell, R. B. (1940). A culture free intelligence test. I. Journal of Educational Psychology, 31, 161-180.

Cattell, R. B. (1941). A culture free intelligence test. II. Evaluation of cultural influences on test performance. Journal of Educational Psychology, 32, 81-100.

Cattell, R. B., Eber, H. W., and Tatsuoka, M. M. (1970). Handbook for the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire. Champaign, Illinois: Institute for Personality and Ability Testing.

Chapman, J. W., and Tunmer, W. E. (1997). A longitudinal study of beginning reading achievement and reading self-concept. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 67, 279-291.

Dodd, K. (1995). Letter from a mother. In T. R. Miles and V. Varma (eds). Dyslexia and Stress. London: Whurr.

Hales, G. W. (1990). Personality Aspects of Dyslexia. In G Hales [ed] Meeting points in Dyslexia (Proceedings of the first International Conference on Dyslexia, Bath, 1989). Reading: British Dyslexia Association.

Hales, G. W. (2001). How we felt and how we tackled it!!- the experiences of dyslexic people and their parents. Presentation to the fifth BDA International Conference, York, April 2001.

Kershaw, J. (1974). People with Dyslexia. Report of a Working Party commissioned by the British Council for the Rehabilitation of the Disabled. London: British Council for the Rehabilitation of the Disabled.

Lindsay, G. and Dockrell, J. (1997). The behaviour and self-esteem of children with specific speech and language difficulties. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 70, 583-601.

Muijs, R. D. (1997). Predictors of academic achievement and academic self-concept: a longitudinal perspective. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 67, 263-277.

Turner, M. (1997). Psychological Assessment of Dyslexia. London: Whurr.