It was found that the non-dyslexic imagers in the study have very strong spelling skills. The dyslexic verbaliser had fewer problems with reading and spelling than the dyslexic imager. Studies on children have shown that verbalisers have more proficient initial reading abilities than imagers. A tentative hypothesis that imagers are more impaired by dyslexia than verbalisers is made, on the basis that verbalisers are able to use phonetics (a highly verbal function) to compensate for some of the reading and spelling problems faced by dyslexics.
Of the dyscalculics, the intermediate-imager was found to be using imaging techniques to compensate for some of the problems caused by her dyscalculia. The analytic-verbaliser was unable to use imaging and appeared to be severely impaired by lack of wholist capacity; seeing mathematical problems as a series of unconnectable tasks. Due to the limited scale of this study it was not possible to draw a clear hypothesis in terms of dyscalculia and cognitive style, but questions which should be addressed in further research became apparent.
This study has most value as a preliminary investigation, demonstrating the need for, and directing, further research. A quantitative investigation with a much larger sample would provide a clearer and more conclusive understanding of the links between cognitive style, coping strategies and dyslexia/dyscalculia.
This project would not have been possible without the help and advice given to me by so many people. I would like to thank in no particular order:
Nigel Ford for agreeing to supervise my project before we even knew what it would be and providing me with continual inspiration and encouragement during the last nine months.
Kim Wall for extensive proof-reading, technical support and providing a much needed wholist perspective throughout.
Nigel Simeone for his thorough English language and punctuation advice, as well as persistence in teaching me the finer points of English (and indeed American) grammar.
My participants, Kira, Eva, Anna, Suzanne, Janet, Maria and Natasha - you all know who you are. Thank you for your time and your thoughts. Also thanks to those who offered to participate but were not used. Without you all none of this would have been possible.
Everyone else who has put up with me talking incessantly about cognitive styles since November.
I planned to investigate possible differences between dyslexics, dyscalculics and people with no known learning difficulties in the context of cognitive style using Riding's Cognitive Styles Analysis (CSA) tests. Differences in cognitive style indicate differences in how a person organises and represents information during information-processing activities (Riding & Raynor, 1998).
My research question was therefore:
``Is there a difference in cognitive style between dyslexics, dyscalculics and those with no learning difficulties. In addition, how does their cognitive style interact with their learning difficulties.''
The CSA test is a quantitative measure of cognitive style which will be combined with a qualitative structured interview. A qualitative approach is more suitable for the small sample size and the subjective nature of the research question. The data from this study was unlikely to be suitable for anything more than a basic statistical analysis.
The combination of psychometric data from the CSA test and in-depth structured interview data was intended to allow correlations to be drawn between the participants' cognitive styles, dyslexia/dyscalculia and their preferred methods of processing information.
Participants were to be asked to carry out the CSA test on the computer followed by a 20 - 30 minute semi-structured interview during which I planned to discuss the CSA test result and explain what it means and get some feedback about what each participant thinks of their cognitive style.
The CSA test was believed to be appropriate for the study because it is specifically designed for use with participants who have basic (or better) reading skills and is easily implemented, being a simple computerised test. The CSA test has previously been used in Chin et al.'s (2001) study of dyslexic children and their cognitive style in the context mathematical problem solving. The verbal-imager sub-test requires some reading ability for both the visual and conceptual components, thus compensating for differences in reading ability and speed during calculation of the cognitive style result. This is especially important in this project, as I planned to compare the results of dyslexics with those of non-dyslexics.
All the participants for this project had at some point done some academic study after high school. This was to ensure a certain level of consistency between the participants. However this limits the relevance of this study to a smaller population. A larger number and wider range of people would be needed in order to draw fully representative and statistically significant conclusions.
The time scale of the study limited the number of people who could be interviewed in such detail; therefore no formal testing of dyslexia or dyscalculia was planned. Some dyslexic and most of the dyscalculic participants had not been formally tested due to poor availability of testing for adults who have achieved a basic level of education. Participants were asked whether they had any known cognitive function; sensory impairment or learning difficulties other than dyslexia or dyscalculia. This was taken into account during analysis.
Cognitive style can be measured in a number of different ways; Riding's Cognitive Styles Analysis (CSA) was devised by Riding and colleagues analysing several different accepted measures of cognitive style and discovering that despite the different vocabulary, jargon and testing methodologies, these methods represented cognitive style somewhere along two separate but linked dimensions called the `wholist-analytic' and `verbal-imager' (Sadler-Smith, 2001; Riding & Raynor, 1998).
Riding & Raynor (1998) and Sadler-Smith (2001) both describe the variety of cognitive style measures and definitions used in the field of cognitive psychology. Riding and other researchers in the field speculate that cognitive style may represent a bridge between what might be two fairly distinct areas of psychological investigation: cognition and personality. The work by Riding and colleagues is still being developed and is continuing to link to areas such as individual difference, learning strategies, decisiveness and other personality traits (Riding & Raynor, 1998).
Sadler-Smith (2001) discusses how Riding and Cheema argued learners differ in terms of these wholist-analytic and verbal-imager dimensions. The wholist-analytic dimension describes the manner in which a person habitually and preferentially organises information. The verbal-imager dimension describes how an individual habitually and preferentially represents information. Individuals have the capacity to use either verbal or imager mode, but will usually have a strong tendency to one or another allowing an individual to be placed somewhere on that dimension.
| Style | Ratio Range |
|---|---|
| wholist | 0.37 -- 1.02 |
| bimodal | 1.03 -- 1.35 |
| analytic | 1.36 -- 4.05 |
| verbaliser | 0.40 -- 0.98 |
| intermediate | 0.99 -- 1.09 |
| imager | 1.10 -- 5.61 |
The definition points for the different style definitions were devised during a study of 1,000 people giving a one in three potential for being defined as each type on each dimension and therefore a one in nine chance of being one particular style pairing.
People with dyslexia have a difference in the area of the brain which deals with language. Between 4% and 10% of the population have some form of dyslexic tendency, with most sources citing 4% of those as having severe difficulties and 6% having mild to moderate difficulties (BDA, 2003; British Dyslexics, 2003).
There is dispute as to whether there is an equal ratio of males to females affected by dyslexia, some say the ratio is three males to every one female (Dyslexia Institute, 2003; BDA, 2003) others say it is one male to one female (Snowling, 1998). Snowling (1998) believes the reason for the difference in diagnosis between males and females is that in school education females behave less badly when experiencing learning difficulties. Snowling (1998) also found that when girls were sent to special schools because of their dyslexia that their problems were more severe than their male counterparts'.
Dyslexia is believed to have a biological origin, as well as an environmental component, many people with dyslexia will have other family members with some level of dyslexic difficulty. Dyslexia occurs independently of intellectual ability although this will of course affect an individual's ability to overcome their language difficulties (Dyslexia Institute, 2003; BDA, 2003; Snowling, 1998; Malmer, 2000). Dyslexia also exists independently of other factors such as poor motivation, emotional disturbance, lack of opportunity or sensory impairment; however these may also be present in people with dyslexia.
Much of the literature is specifically about dyslexic children which is unsurprising as children with dyslexia often have serious trouble with reading, writing, spelling and organisation. Dyslexia often affects children's ability to learn effectively in the normal school environment. Snowling (1998) believes adults often compensate for dyslexic difficulties in reading by using phonological techniques. This compensation mechanism still leaves adult dyslexics vulnerable to difficulties especially when spelling and reading `non-words', or words that they have not met before. This may have interesting correlations with cognitive style and coping strategy as phonological techniques would favour the verbaliser over the imager (Riding & Raynor, 1998).
In von Károlyi et al.'s (2002) work, where a group of dyslexic teenagers and a group of non-dyslexic teenagers were shown images of three-dimensional shapes, the dyslexic group were able to identify the `impossible' shapes significantly faster than their non-dyslexic counterparts. Von Károlyi et al. (2002) concluded that this indicates that dyslexics may perform better at tasks requiring a holistic approach and speculated that this may be due to the presumption that dyslexia is caused by a disorder in part of the left-hemisphere of the brain (Snowling, 1998; von Károlyi et al., 2002). However others have disagreed strongly with these findings believing the so-called better ability to handle these tasks is purely anecdotal (Everatt. et al, 1999; Chin et al., 2001).
Besides reading, writing and spelling difficulties there are other difficulties that dyslexic people are known to have, for example sequencing and grouping, which can impact upon an individual's ability to organise themselves with regards to the world around them (Dyslexia Institute, 2003). Some dyslexic people have additional difficulties learning mathematical and numerical concepts (Attwood, 2002). Malmer (2000) reports that approximately 11% of dyslexic children are of above average ability in mathematics. 40% of dyslexic children have some difficulty with mathematics, and the majority of those are impaired by difficulties with reading, sequencing and spacial awareness. Mathematical concepts and calculations are often presented in a way which is disadvantageous to dyslexic children; many of them improve significantly if mathematical information is presented to them in a consistent manner (Attwood, 2002; Malmer, 2000).
Chin et al.'s (2001) conclusions that the dyslexic children in his study tended to use an iterative (serial) approach to solve the mathematical problems is in contrast with von Károlyi et al.'s (2002) conclusions that dyslexics were quicker using a presumably holistic approach to identify impossible shapes. Von Károlyi et al.'s (2002) research did not use the same type of cognitive style data so cannot be directly contrasted with the work of Chin et al. (2001).
Dyscalculia is gaining recognition in the UK with schools and higher education institutes becoming aware of it as a specific learning disorder which should be studied. Dyscalculic individuals are being given the chance to have extra support, education and understanding (Strathclyde, 2002). Some sources cite 4% of the population having some form of dyscalculia which is not attributable to other causes -- for example poor teaching; other learning difficulties; and general poor ability. Someone can be poor at mathematics without being dyscalculic (Malmer, 2000).
For this study three main methods have been used:
The CSA test allows quantitative psychometric data to be collected for each participant. This enables their cognitive style to be determined easily with a reasonable degree of accuracy (Riding, 2003). The dyslexia checklist was used to provide a consistent measure of dyslexic traits amongst the participants. The in-depth interview was to provide a detailed understanding of each participant as a person and how they approach day to day information processing tasks. In addition their education was discussed in detail to glean understanding of what types of activities they found easy, difficult or impossible to learn. Those participants who were unable to manage, or found certain information processing tasks difficult, were asked further questions to ascertain whether they had any coping strategies and how effective they may be.
The in-depth interview and CSA test allows for any tentative correlation between the participant's cognitive style and information-processing task capabilities to be drawn. The combination of methods allows for triangulation between different factors and any such correlations to be highlighted for future, perhaps more statistically valid, investigation with this study being a piece of preliminary research.
A pilot test was carried out with one individual in order to test implementation strategy, coherence of instructions and time scale. The pilot participant Kira was available and willing to give me detailed feedback at all stages of her assessment. Kira is not dyslexic or dyscalculic but was unsuitable for use in the main study due to being colourblind. The verbal-imager part of the CSA test makes the assumption that someone who is an imager is thinking in colour. Kira's colour perception is such that her cognitive processing of colour is very limited and therefore had to ``stop and think'' about the colour of objects mentioned within the CSA test. This would artificially bias her results towards the verbaliser end of the dimension. A detailed profile of Kira appears in Appendix E.1.
As a result of the pilot test the instructions for the CSA test were rewritten and improved for accuracy. It was decided that despite Riding's recommendation that the word `assessment' or `analysis' should be used instead of `test' this was not a realistic concern as Kira felt that anyone who had recently been in education (most of the participants) would understand the words to be synonymous.
A major change which came about as a result of the pilot test was the decision to carry out the CSA tests after the main part of the interview, as it was felt doing the CSA test could bias the content of the interview and distract the participant from answering the interview questions in a `naïve' context.
The British Dyslexia Association (BDA, 2003) has an adult dyslexia checklist which was devised in 1994 by Michael Vingrad. It is a basic questionnaire comprising 20 questions which are answered with a simple `yes' or `no'. 12 of these questions are listed in separate order of importance for being more likely to identify dyslexic individuals from non-dyslexic individuals. The questionnaire was originally tested on 679 individuals of which 32 individuals were known to have dyslexia, the 12 best discriminator questions came about as the result of analysis in the main study. The full text of the dyslexia checklist appears in Appendix B.
If more than nine responses out of twenty, are `yes' answers this is an indicator of dyslexia. The items which are given `yes' answers should then be compared to the 12 `best discriminator' questions as a further majority of these is a strong indicator of dyslexia. On the original study 60% of people gave no more than 4 `yes' responses, and 90% gave no more than 8 `yes' responses out of a possible 20.
The dyslexia checklist was intended to be used as a basic indicator of dyslexic traits in adults who suspect they have dyslexia. However it does not distinguish between those who find things difficult because of a problem such as dyslexia or dyscalculia and those who have similar difficulties due to language problems; other learning difficulties or basic lack of care and attention.
It was found that some participants said one thing on the dyslexia checklist and later contradicted that view in the interview. This may have been due to the binary nature of the checklist which could have been improved by using a 5 point Likert scale. Additionally some of the participants made passing comments about an other participant which contradicted the dyslexia checklist.
There does not appear to be an equivalent dyscalculia checklist to discriminate between dyscalculic individuals and others, however I was able to find a fact sheet outlining the problems commonly faced by dyscalculics at various stages in their education and adulthood (NCLDb, 2004).
Having an official diagnosis of dyslexia or dyscalculia is not terribly useful to most adults as the problems will still be present and diagnosis is only really of use to those in early education or eligible for extra educational support. The checklists do allow individuals to self-identify as having dyscalculia or dyslexia and can provide some relief in the form of understanding of the problems they have.
More detailed questions were asked of those who mentioned interesting strategies or difficulties with certain tasks: the dyscalculic participants were asked extra questions related to mathematical concepts to gauge whether they were able to devise interesting coping strategies. All participants were asked to think about how they do things especially those things which they enjoyed or found especially easy or difficult. The interview questions appear in Appendix C.
Participants were told that the test could only be taken once and that they should concentrate upon reading the instructions as the test was designed for that kind of input. One of the drawbacks of reading out the instructions in advance was that some participants asked lots of questions which I was unable to answer without biasing the test. However all the participants accepted that it was important to approach the test without prejudice from me. It was explained that the test was designed for UK natives and that some of the questions were referring to UK concepts for the two non-UK people taking the test.
Participants were allowed to ask for clarification or query me during the test and three did so, two asked if a mistake was a problem and were reassured that that was not a problem. One participant with dyslexia asked what colour `heather' was as she had not come across it before. Other than communications instigated by the participant they were not disturbed while carrying out the test.
In the future it would probably be sensible to create a pre-recorded tape which each participant could control during the three instruction points in the test to ensure `non-disturbance' and consistency while not overloading them with information before the test. I still believe it was worth reading out the instructions as one of the participants was relieved they were not just relying upon what they had read, and were able to clarify vocabulary they were unsure about.
Interviews, dyslexia checklists and CSA tests were all carried out individually with each participant knowing very little about the Riding Cognitive Styles definitions beforehand. Participants were told that cognitive style was independent from intelligence and it was not like IQ where a low number is less `valued' than a higher one. Participants were told they would be allowed to ask questions afterwards and that I would answer honestly and give as much detail as they wished. All the participants understood that approaching the test from a `naïve' perspective was important to maintain validity of the research and as such they did not discuss the contents of the research with anyone else who was about to participate. The full instructions, as read out to the participants appears in Appendix A
The dyslexia checklist was carried out by my reading out the questions preserving the word order as printed and filling out the answer. Again this was to eliminate difficulties in reading and to ensure each participant had an equal chance to answer the questions.
As there was a gender imbalance amongst those who agreed to participate in this study which would at most give me two male participants to seven female participants I decided to interview only the female participants. This eliminates any differences which gender might have with regard to cognitive styles and make it less easy to draw accurate tentative correlations (Riding & Raynor, 1998).
All of the participants had an accuracy level of 85% or above on all parts of the CSA test. All of the speed indices were within acceptable ratios and Natasha, who completed the test with the highest speed, had 98% accuracy overall -- the highest out of all the participants.
| Name | Age | Group | Dyslexia Checklist | Handedness | Cognitive Style | Ratios | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 Q | 12 Q | WA | VI | |||||
| Eva | 24 | Dyslexia | 13 | 8 | Right | intermediate verbaliser | 1.08 | 0.86 |
| Anna | 28 | Dyslexia | 14 | 8 | Ambidextrous | intermediate imager | 1.15 | 1.10 |
| Janet | 59 | Dyscalculia | 9 | 5 | Right | analytic verbaliser | 1.43 | 0.89 |
| Suzanne | 25 | Dyscalculia | 9 | 7 | Right | intermediate imager | 1.03 | 1.24 |
| Maria | 26 | Control | 10 | 5 | Left | analytic imager | 1.50 | 1.44 |
| Natasha | 24 | Control | 3 | 2 | Left | wholist verbaliser | 0.97 | 0.75 |
| Kira | 24 | Pilot | 6 | 3 | Right | wholist verbaliser | 0.91 | 0.93 |
I have not analysed this data in detail preferring to focus upon the interview and CSA results.
 |
On the wholist-analytic dimension there were two wholists: Natasha and Kira; three intermediates Eva, Anna and Suzanne; and two analytics Anna and Maria. On the verbal-imagery dimension there were four verbalisers; Kira, Natasha, Janet and Eva, and three imagers: Suzanne, Anna and Maria. Only two interview participants had the same cognitive style pairing: Anna and Suzanne.
Riding & Raynor (1998) say it is as much the combination of styles which is important as the individual style dimensions themselves. The basic style results will therefore be discussed in the context of the cognitive style pairs rather than individual dimensions. All the participants' cognitive styles have been plotted on Figure 2 which gives a general idea of where each individual is in relation to the others.
Table 3 has been adapted from one of Riding's earlier works in which he describes cognitive style pairs and how wholist or analytic they are overall, which has been shown to effect personality traits such as decisiveness (Riding & Raynor, 1998). Table 4 is another axis of style pairings which which style pairs are more complementary and which are less so (unitary). The participants have been placed in the appropriate categories.
| Extreme Wholist | Extreme Analytic | |||||||
| WI | WB | II | WV | IB | AI | IV | AB | AV |
| Anna | Kira | Maria | Eva | Janet | ||||
| Suzanne | Natasha | |||||||
| Complementary | Unitary | |||||||
| WV | AI | IV | II | WB | AB | IB | AV | WI |
| Kira | Maria | Eva | Anna | Janet | ||||
| Natasha | Suzanne | |||||||
Eva was read to a great deal by her mother as a child and her mother was happy to do this until Eva was confident enough to start reading books on her own when she was about ten years old. Eva says her reading speed is slow but that does not stop her reading regularly, so much so that her non-dyslexic friends often do not believe Eva can have dyslexia because she reads more than they do. Eva strongly prefers fiction to other forms of writing. She read non-fiction as part of her Sociology with English Literature degree but does not find it easy to understand. Eva likes to be told a story and specifically mentioned she hates biography, finding it dull and boring. Eva loathes reading aloud, says she finds it extremely stressful and is not very good at it. Eva has learned through being at university to be able to study in a library and improve her concentration which she says is poor and means she needs to have no distractions when she is trying to read or work.
Eva believes her spelling has improved through extensive reading, she says she believes she would find reading much harder if she hadn't read much and tried to read now. Eva identified problematic words in spelling as those which are not phonetic or have silent or double letters, this could be because she has learned spelling phonetically using her verbaliser style to her advantage. Eva learned Spanish at school and found it very easy to spell because it is almost always phonetic and much more consistent in its rules.
Eva was and still is a regular letter writer, these days she prefers to type them so she can take advantage of spell checking facilities which she usually finds useful. Her mother says that Eva still misses spellings but is able to see some of her mistakes and Eva says the spell-checker allows her to see what is misspelt and allows her to work hard to learn her common mistakes and overcome them.
Eva says she was not terrible at mathematics at school, she actually appreciated the logic that is inherent to maths which she does not find in English spelling. She can learn a process for mathematical operations which she cannot do for spelling as the rules are not consistent. Eva finds it difficult to write down numbers in sequence unless they are given in a rhythm, she finds it especially difficult if the speaker changes one of the numbers half way through and has to ask for the whole sequence to be repeated again.
Eva realised as she got older that being prepared and organised for things in day-to-day life was an essential coping strategy for tasks which she naturally finds difficult. Eva confesses to being ``a control freak'' about arranging plans and travel, looking up timetables and options in advance so she is able relax knowing she has prepared properly. She says this is not always natural to her, but taking the extra time to make that effort pays off in appearing competent and achieving things that she would like to do. Eva finds it frustrating when other people's actions change her plans at the last minute.
Anna was not read aloud to very much as a child and does not remember ever having help from her parents with reading. Anna's first language is Afrikaans, although she only uses this with her mother, and she says reading is equally difficult in Afrikaans and in English. Anna reads more than she used to as a child, but still finds many words difficult and the effort of concentrating on what the words mean detracts from the actual context and emotion of the overall content. Anna reads newspapers and autobiography, finding many pieces of fiction are difficult to understand and contextualise. Anna likes it when someone is able to read poetry to her and explain unknown words so she can appreciate the emotion, context and use of language.
Anna will observe things around her when she is out and about and write prose and poetry about them, she will share her work with people like her partner Natasha who understand about Anna's spelling. Anna says she has no way of knowing whether a word is spelt correctly or incorrectly, in fact she has no idea what it should look like at all, which is a problem for using tools such as dictionaries and spell-checkers. Natasha commented in her own interview that Anna often struggles to identify the correct word even with a spell-checker and often needs someone to check that she is selecting the right word to replace the misspelling.
Anna spent a lot of time in remedial education classes at school and believes they did little to help her dyslexia, as they mostly relied upon repetitive methods to teach spelling and writing. Anna also says that as a child she had very poor concentration which could be linked to dyslexia or as a result of finding everything so difficult. Anna was very happy when she finally graduated from secondary school and was able to study psychology, a subject she was actually interested in.
Anna found maths at school very difficult especially multiplication tables, with the exception of her five times table which she says she enjoyed. Anna once worked for a club that had a till which did not display the amount of change to give. To deal with this she drew up a table beforehand which had the different ticket values, with the payment quantities and the appropriate change she should give out for each one. This allowed her to look up the values when handling money in real-time without worrying about making mistakes. Anna will always use a pen and paper with a calculator if doing anything mathematical to ensure she gets it all correct.
Anna says she likes to be organised, having ``everything in a place and a place for everything'', and in her current job one of her favourite tasks is to ``tidy and organise things on the shelves into sensible places''. She writes her appointments and rotas on a calendar and consults this daily to ensure that she has remembered plans correctly.
Suzanne found learning to read easy as a child and has always read a great deal saying that she scares people with the speed at which she reads. Suzanne says reading is an activity she finds ``extremely relaxing and nice''. Suzanne prefers fiction but she sometimes reads non-fiction which she describes as ``hippy new age'' and weblogs. As a child Suzanne listened extensively to audio tapes and still likes to be read to (especially if she is ill). Suzanne is happy to read aloud.
In situations where Suzanne had nothing to read as a child, she would write herself stories. She likes the idea of writing for pleasure now and is glad that her mother insisted that she work hard to improve her handwriting as a child. Suzanne mostly drew as a child and for many years wanted to be an artist, She still draws more than she writes describing it as ``enjoyable and therapeutic''. Suzanne used to get into trouble at school for handing in worksheets covered in doodles and drawings.
Suzanne found learning to spell as a child easy in what she calls ``a very intuitive instinctive sort of way''. She cannot tell you what spelling rules are, but she knows if a word is spelt right or wrong. She describes seeing words as images to explain her good spelling skills. Suzanne says reading widely exposed her to a wide variety of different words which she then uses in her own writing. She takes great pride in being able to spell and likes not having to rely on tools to have good spelling.
Suzanne found maths and mathematical concepts extremely difficult to learn and understand as a child. Her mother was aware of her difficulties early on and spent a number of years regularly teaching Suzanne her multiplication tables because she felt it was an essential skill for Suzanne to have. Suzanne still struggles with mathematical concepts and she has a fair amount of phobia associated with this, but is able to use multiplication tables as she feels that she can rely on them. Suzanne says she is generally competent with basic addition; subtraction being a little harder and most other mathematical concepts are beyond her.
Multiplication tables are one of the few things Suzanne says she learned aurally: When she needs to use them she remembers herself, aged nine, hearing and learning them. Suzanne will hear multiplication tables recited like a poem in her head.
Suzanne says she cannot visualise equations and sequences of numbers in the same way as she would with words. She says that she passed her mathematics GCSE due to the high level of geometry and basic trigonometry on the exam papers; if she can draw it then she has some chance of being able to do it. Suzanne surprised her maths teachers by understanding probability very easily, she says she could visualise the concept of a coin having a 50:50 chance of landing on either side.
Suzanne finds financial calculations very difficult and is very poor at managing her finances as a result. Online banking has helped make this less overwhelming, as she can manage her bank account when she feels secure enough to face it, as opposed to having a postal statement appear without warning. Suzanne remembers her online banking passwords as a sequence of words, she chose those particular numbers as they are the title of a poem which she likes.
Suzanne finds using numbers in day-to-day life quite difficult, especially when she has to handle sequences of numbers. She worked for a bank doing data entry and was asked to leave after a day because she was regularly putting numbers in the wrong order into the database. She says if people give her numbers without a rhythm or in a rhythm she does not use herself, she will find it difficult to write them down correctly. She has been known to not recognise her own phone number given to her in a different pattern.
Suzanne says she does not have many problems with time and dates because she is able remember herself in the past doing a similar activity. If Suzanne has to meet someone she will work out the timings by remembering herself having worked it out for a similar situation in the past. Suzanne tends to perform very basic calculations using her fingers or imaginary fingers. Suzanne says actual currency is easier to manage than some other number, but she would not know if she was given change correctly, she says she just accepts it and hopes it is right.
Suzanne says she cannot estimate the number of things in a collection, it is not just difficult but that she cannot do it at all. She has been asked as part of her job to say how many children are in a classroom and she cannot estimate and would have to count each one individually. Suzanne says she can tell you something about each individual child in the classroom, but not how many of them there are.
Suzanne says she is not very organised with her possessions, using the floor as a giant shelf containing all the things which she considers important. She likes typing her documents on the computer because it is less easy for things to get lost. Suzanne says she gets by using calendars to organise her appointments but may not always succeed in being organised.
Janet does not remember learning to read as a child but read widely and reads quite fast now. Janet prefers fiction to non fiction, but she never reads technical manuals and does not find them easy to understand. Janet is only just beginning to enjoy reading again after many years of reading aloud by necessity for her late husband who was blind. Janet also read aloud regularly to her dyslexic daughter Eva when she was a child. Janet listens to the radio regularly and likes having things read aloud to her.
Janet handwrites letters to people because she believes sending typed letters is impersonal unless they are visually impaired and need larger type. Janet never drew as a child and does not draw now. Janet found learning to spell very difficult as a child and remembers spelling lists which made her panic. Janet still finds some words difficult to spell especially those with `rr' or `ss' in them, or words she does not know. Janet believes the words she struggles to spell now are probably consistent. Janet finds using spell-checkers and dictionaries easy as she usually knows which letters a word begins with and is able to recognise the correct word for her misspelling. She says she has poorer spelling when she types on the computer because she is more careless.
Janet found learning maths and mathematical concepts as a child very difficult. Janet still struggles a great deal with day-to-day mathematical tasks. She is often unsure which operand to use for the task: ``sometimes I don't know which direction I should be going in''. Janet does not find that she is able to visualise any maths and drawing things does not help her.
Janet copes by being extremely careful, writing down workings on a piece of paper, repeating the calculation a number of times and checking the answers to ensure they are all the same. Some years ago, after being introduced to computers, Janet wrote herself a spreadsheet for managing household expenses. Janet felt she was able to trust her spreadsheet more because she wrote it, but it was not the same as `knowing' that it was correct, and providing Janet puts the right numbers in the right places it is an improvement on previous methods.
Janet found learning multiplication tables at school difficult and even now only knows her twos and fives, and the first few rows of the fours. Janet finds currency slightly easier than abstract numbers because she can count it given sufficient time. However in a shop she will not know she has been given the right change and has to hope the cashier has not made a mistake. If the money calculations do not involve actual physical coins it is like any other maths -- extremely difficult.
Janet finds managing dates and times very difficult because she cannot be sure that she is counting in the right direction. She will have to count round on an analogue clock-face to ensure she is leaving at the correct time to get to an appointment and she will count round a number of times to ensure she has counted the right way. Janet uses a diary to note down appointments and plans, she uses a calendar to count through the days, weeks or months as required.
In the control group we have Maria, an analytic imager, and Natasha, a wholist verbaliser. Natasha has an overall wholist cognitive style while Maria has a more analytic one. They both have complementary style pairings.
Maria found learning to read easy as a child, she says her reading speed is slow but that does not stop her reading. She prefers fiction to non-fiction, specifically young adult fiction. She also reads newspapers, e-zines and weblogs. As a Drama teacher Maria regularly has to read aloud, which she enjoys.
Maria drew and wrote a lot as a child, she still draws regularly and prefers it to handwriting because she is not limited by the same difficulties she experiences with left-handed handwriting. She found learning to spell easy, assisted by a wide range of methods such as the use of phonics, mnemonics, repetition, homophones and the competitive nature of `Spelling Bees' which she says she would do again if she was in practice. She says she just knows how a word should be spelt. Maria finds it frustrating when fellow teachers cannot spell despite being otherwise well educated.
Maria found learning maths easy as a child and is still confident in her mathematical abilities including multiplication tables. She admits to making mistakes in currency because she rounds up rather than down but this does not really bother her. Maria finds it difficult to estimate how many people are in a room, usually guessing too high or low -- she does not worry about being inaccurate.
Maria says she has to organise things in her head before she can do it in reality. She has been known to draw the objects she needs to take on holiday and use that as a checklist while collecting these objects from around the house. Maria says she is usually late if meeting someone in Sheffield because she is ``kind of arbitrary about arrival times''. If she is travelling a long way she has to ``organise it like a SWAT mission'' which usually results in her being early.
Natasha found learning to read easy as a child and still spends a great deal of her time reading. She reads slowly, taking time to visualise what she reads: ``I like reading, reading fiction where you visualise it''. Natasha enjoys reading aloud and usually sub-vocalises: ``I read out loud in my head if that helps. I have talked to [Kira] and she doesn't read out loud in her head, she just reads it, which is why she is faster than I am''. Natasha finds she can only read non-fiction which is suitably conversational. If it does not have dialogue then she is almost unable get anything out of reading it. In these situations she will ``find someone who had read it and say `summarise it for me, tell me a nice story' ''.
Natasha found learning to spell as a child difficult because she finds it very hard to learn by rote. She has since learned that there are certain words she does not spell well: ``I write it and think `That's how I spell it, now how do I change it so it is spelt how everyone else spells it' ''. Most of Natasha's spelling mistakes are related to phonetics, silent letters and non-standard word endings.
Natasha found learning multiplication tables and mental arithmetic very difficult at school because she found it hard to get a sense of what was going on. With a lot of encouragement and support she learned her six times table which she uses to derive the rest. She was much happier when mathematics became more equation based and studied it up to A level. Natasha says she is able to estimate the number of people in a room without any noticeable processing taking place: ``I don't think I am carrying out any mental process, I think I am just looking'', and usually gets it right.
Both Maria and Natasha read slowly but extensively and prefer fiction to non-fiction. Janet and Suzanne read quite quickly and also prefer fiction to non-fiction. There does not seem to be a difference between these four in terms of overall reading ability -- speed of reading is not necessarily an indicator of accuracy or proficiency. Riding's research did specifically refer to children and the trends may have evened out by adulthood.
Interestingly the two non-dyslexic imagers, Suzanne and Maria, are both very good at spelling -- finding it intuitive to know whether a word is spelt correctly or not. The non-dyslexic verbalisers, Janet and Natasha, both report spelling difficulties with words that are not phonetic or have unexpected silent letters. Perhaps the imagers are able to spell better because they remember the shape of a word as an image, rather than remembering a word as a series of phonetic components, as the verbalisers appear to. Natasha reports finding any rote learning difficult, but this may be because she finds such trivial operations boring -- which could be attributed to be being an extreme wholist. Maria reports having no problems with rote learning, however she finds it harder to see the big picture; hence drawing her inventory when going on holiday.
Of the dyslexics, Eva is able to spell some words which are phonetic, especially Spanish language words, whereas Anna is unable to spell anything reliably as she cannot see whether it is right or wrong. It could be that Eva is able to overcome her dyslexia to some extent by using phonetics which would fit with her preferred and habitual method, while Anna is impaired by not being able to correctly visualise words and their shape forms which would be more suited to her cognitive style.
All of the imagers (Suzanne, Maria and Anna) draw, whereas the only verbaliser who draws is Natasha, a wholist verbaliser who is also left handed. The other two verbalisers, Janet and Eva -- who are both right-handed -- have never drawn. Both Janet and Eva are more analytic in their style pairing, compared to Natasha's extreme wholism. Maybe both handedness and overall cognitive style have some effect here. It has long been believed, with varying amounts of supporting evidence, that the right side of the brain controls imaging while the left side controls verbal functioning. However not everyone uses the same part of the brain for the same tasks and this needs more investigation in relation to cognitive style and handedness (Riding & Raynor, 1998).
Comparing Janet and Suzanne in terms of ability with mathematical concepts, it is important to note that neither has been formally assessed or identified as having dyscalculia. They both report and demonstrate significant problems as described in the dyscalculia checklist (NCLDb, 2004). Suzanne appears to have more effective coping mechanisms for her dyscalculia, using imaging to represent some mathematical concepts and operations. She uses her capacity to remember past experiences and is able to apply those to the present to avoid having to perform calculations. This may be as a result of her higher wholist capacity. Janet is not able visualise things and as an extreme analytic seems to struggle to see mathematical operations as anything more than a collection of steps which she cannot easily connect. This difference in style pairing could also be linked to decisiveness. Janet as an analytic-verbaliser is likely to be more indecisive because she is considering all the possibilities before making a decision. Suzanne as an intermediate-imager is better able to see a bigger picture and make her decisions based on the whole (Riding & Raynor, 1998).
It is not possible to make generalisations from such a small sample size, but there are many questions which have been raised as a result of this small study which would be worthy of future research. With a larger sample size it will be more likely that the effects each cognitive style dimension have will be clearer. Both the dyslexic participants are intermediates which allows for differences between the two individuals to be attributed to the verbal-imagery dimension, but does not account for differences wholist-analytic dimension plays. The dyscalculics have different style definitions on both dimensions which makes it harder to see which dimension may be having the larger effect upon coping strategies.
Further study into learning difficulties, and how they interact with cognitive learning style, could have significant impact upon pedagogic methodologies used in teaching individuals to devise the best strategies for overcoming their difficulties. Even adults who become aware of their cognitive style can begin to choose the type of learning material which is more suited to their cognitive style and improve their information processing capacity (Riding & Raynor, 1998).
Any further research would have to take into account more factors than those covered in this study. Little has been made of gender or handedness in interaction with cognitive style. This is certainly relevant to dyslexia where there is disagreement about its prevalence in the population. Not to mention the differences between genders in certain style interactions.
To fulfil my obligations as a researcher I have to ensure that each participant has equal opportunity to understand what I am doing and what I am asking of them for this piece of research. As such I am going to explain what I am doing in words sticking closely to this script for consistency. I am not intending in any way to patronise my participants in doing so and I apologise for what may seem to be tedious amounts of explanation. I am instructed to request that you leave any general comments or discussion till after the CSA test to ensure that the pre-test instructions are consistent for all participants, you may ask for clarification of instructions but some of the rationale is not explained prior to the computerised test or interview as it could influence the way in which you carry out the test.
I plan to start by explaining the outline of my research (this intro) then asking you a brief set of yes/no questions, followed by some basic demographical questions like name, age, gender, education, profession etc. Then I shall ask some questions about reading, writing, spelling, sequencing and maths skills. I shall try and keep the questions to a minimum and they are designed to be answered reasonably easily. I hope this part should take no more than 20 minutes. After this interview I will ask you to do a short computerised assessment (explained in detail below) and after that ask a few more questions before I finish and give you information about what your result means.
No one except my assistant who will help me transcribe the tapes and myself will have access to the answers to any questions I ask, the tapes of the interview or the CSA assessment data. I will ensure that any information used in the final project masks your identity, probably by use of a pseudonym. I may not use all of the data collected today however I will not allow the data to be used for any other purpose without prior permission from you. If you like I will provide an electronic copy of the final project write up when it has been completed.
Are you okay with all this? Do you have any immediate questions? Shall we begin?
| Order | Item |
| 1 | Q17 |
| 2 | Q13 |
| 3 | Q7 |
| 4 | Q16 |
| 5 | Q18 |
| 6 | Q10 |
| 7 | Q19 |
| 8 | Q14 |
| 9 | Q20 |
| 10 | Q4 |
| 11 | Q1 |
| 12 | Q11 |
If the majority of these items are `yes' answers, this is a strong indication of dyslexia.
On the questionnaire as a whole (ie. all 20 items):
The tests involve you pressing one of two keys in response to the information shown on the screen. These keys are marked with coloured dots and a legend explaining what each key does is always visible on the screen. It is a good idea to have a neutral place for your hand to return to after pressing a key for each answer, this stops the instinct to press the button you did last time and will reduce your error rate.
You will be able to see your result immediately after the 3rd part of the test as the computer calculates it in real-time, please do not press anything when on that screen so I can copy down your result (easily) and explain it to you during the next part of the interview as well as provide you with some information when we are finished.
You have to mark the statement as `right' or `wrong' using the two marked keys. The red key is `wrong' (False), the blue is `right' (True).
Examples:
Don't worry about the occasional mistake, just try to consider the statements carefully and at your own rate.
You will respond to the `question' ``Are these shapes the same?'' by pressing one of the two marked keys to give a `yes' or `no' answer.
Red is `no' (false)
Blue is `yes' (true)
Don't worry about the occasional mistake, just try to consider the statements carefully and at your own rate.
Essentially in this case the `question' is ``Is one shape contained within the other?'' To which you answer `yes' or `no' by pressing one of the two marked keys to give a `yes' or `no' answer.
Red is `no' (false)
Blue is `yes' (true)
Don't worry about the occasional mistake, just try to consider the statements carefully and at your own rate.
It will tell you your cognitive style in words. It will also give you two ratios which is what it uses to calculate your style. I will explain what these mean in the next bit of interview.. Please leave the computer at this screen.
Kira does not have dyslexia or dyscalculia (scoring 6/20 and 3/12 on the dyslexia checklist). However she has a severe form of colour-blindness (protanopia: red insensitivity). As a result, Kira has difficulty differentiating between many colours and as such tends to disregard colour in favour of contrast when perceiving the world around her. Kira is unlikely to refer to things by colour, preferring to use some other (often spacial) term of reference. Kira was not included in the main study because her verbal-imagery ratio is likely to be skewed towards the verbaliser end of the dimension, as the CSA test assumes imagers are thinking in colour. Kira is right handed.
Kira's CSA result defined her as a wholist-verbaliser with a WA ratio of 0.91 and a VI ratio of 0.93. This is quite close to the definition of bimodal (0.98), and taking her colour vision into account wholist-bimodal could be a more accurate cognitive style definition.
Eva has dyslexia which mainly affects her spelling but has in the past affected her reading, writing, sequencing and organisation. Eva's dyslexia was not formally identified until her final year at school. She started using a computer for her academic work during A-levels and was supported by disabled student allowances during her undergraduate degree. Eva scored 13/20 and 8/12 on the dyslexia checklist. The CSA test result defined Eva as an intermediate-verbaliser with a WA ratio of 1.08 and a VI ratio of 0.86.
Anna has dyslexia which was never formally identified during her education but is very apparent from her spelling, difficulties with reading and dyslexia checklist results, which were 14/20 and 8/12. Anna does not believe that the remedial support she received at school helped her because dyslexia was not recognised by her educators at that time. Anna's CSA test result shows she is an intermediate-imager with a WA ratio of 1.15 and a VI ratio of 1.10.
Suzanne has dyscalculia which mainly affects her ability to manage finances and understand mathematical concepts, she scored 11/20 and 5/12 on the dyslexia checklist. She has never had a formal assessment for her dyscalculia but when taking an online test for it she miscounted the number of questions when calculating her result -- she considers this ironic. Suzanne also experiences a number of difficulties as described in the NCLD dyscalculia fact sheet (NCLDb, 2004) Suzanne's CSA test result defined her as an intermediate-imager with a WA ratio of 1.03 and a VI ratio of 1.24.
Janet has severe difficulties with mathematical concepts and estimating which suggests she has dyscalculia, she has many of the difficulties as outlined in the dyscalculia fact sheet (NCLDb, 2004). Janet's dyslexia checklist scores were 9/20 and 5/12. Janet says her dyscalculia has probably prevented her from becoming a professional musician because she cannot sight read well or calculate timings easily from musical notation. Janet's CSA test result defined her as an analytic-verbaliser with a WA ratio of 1.43 and a VI ratio of 0.89.
Maria does not have dyslexia or dyscalculia, her dyslexia checklist scores were 10/20 and 5/12. Maria's CSA test result showed she is an analytic-imager with a WA ratio of 1.50 and a VI ratio of 1.44.
Natasha does not have dyslexia or dyscalculia but she does find some complex spellings difficult especially if they are not phonetic or follow the standard rules. Natasha's dyslexia checklist scores were 3/20 and 3/12. Natasha's CSA test result defines her as a wholist-verbaliser with a WA ratio of 0.97 and a VI ratio of 0.75.
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