ABSTRACT
As was mentioned in the introductory chapter of this book there is little research on the social and emotional consequences of dyslexia. Pumfrey and Reason (1991) in their comprehensive report Specific Learning Difficulties (Dyslexia) state that more research on this area is essential. Despite the paucity of research, concerned clinicians and educationalists have consistently pointed to the devastating effects that dyslexia or specific learning disabilities can have on some children’s lives. Concern can be traced from Orton’s early clinical work through both the Bullock (1975) and Warnock (DES 1978) Reports to the recent report by Pumfrey and Reason. It appears that whatever the debate about terminology and identification, at a global level there is agreement that such difficulties can have a detrimental effect on both the lives of children and their families. Despite this agreement this is a difficult and complex area to research. To start with both dyslexia and social and emotional difficulties have to be clearly defined and identified before the relationship between them can be examined. To date much of the research has looked at children with reading disabilities or more generally at children with learning disabilities. This research has generally used a group comparison design so that, for example, the self-esteem of a group of reading-delayed and non-reading-delayed children would be compared. The problem with this approach is that individual differences between children can be masked and it doesn’t relate the individual’s specific experiences to their level of selfesteem. We might expect for example that a dyslexic child who has been well supported at home and at school would be more likely to have a reasonable level of esteem than a child who has not been supported well at either home or school. Another difficulty in researching this area, is that dyslexia is a
developmental disorder which changes in its manifestations over time. It may be that social and emotional experiences change or fluctuate considerably over time and that circumstances, cumulative experiences and maturation all affect the likely outcome at a given point in time. If for example a study looked at 10 year old dyslexics who had learnt to read and were well supported in the classroom and compared their self-esteem to that of their classmates no significant difference might be found. If this were the case this would be an interesting and valid finding in its own right. The danger would be in over generalizing this finding and saying that dyslexic children don’t have lower self-esteem than other children or even that 10 year old dyslexic children don’t have lower self-esteem than other children. These same children at 7 years of age before they were identified as dyslexic and offered support may have had very low self-esteem compared with their classmates. So as with all cross sectional research the age and stage at which a child is studied is of key importance. Yet another difficulty is in selecting the right measures to tap into any difficulties or differences that dyslexic children display compared with their peers. A study by (Porter and Rourke 1985) found that 10 per cent of a sample of a 100 learning disabled children had somatic problems such as migraines or stomach upsets despite scoring normally on an inventory of social and emotional functioning. These kinds of difficulties may account for some of the mixed findings to emerge from this area. Porter and Rourke found for example that 50 per cent of the children in their sample did not show social or emotional difficulties and in a study by Speece et al. (1985) one third of the learning disabled children showed no social or emotional difficulties. The problem with these studies is that they are not specific to children with dyslexia, but they do underline the point that it is important not to assume that all children with dyslexia will automatically have social or emotional difficulties.
