THE STUDENTS

This section introduces each of the four students who took part in the longitudinal study, outlining when they were diagnosed, how they felt about the diagnosis and the types of difficulties they identified at the beginning of their branch programme. These pen pictures were taken from the first interviews held with the students, as they were about to start their two year branch programme.

7.2.1 Grace

Grace was twenty-two at the start of the branch programme and still living at home with her family. Grace came from an affluent family, with both parents working in professional businesses. Her father and her older sister had been diagnosed as dyslexic. Grace first became aware of having difficulties with reading around the age often, and remembered feeling frustrated and not wanting to do her

homework. An early memory for her was being in class and paired off with another pupil, with each one of the pair reading aloud a passage to the other person. Even though this was one to one and with her friends, she remembered it as an

uncomfortable experience.

Her school at that time was not supportive and her family moved her to a private boarding school, which offered a wide range of experiences, both academic and sporting. Grace was allocated a Special Needs Teacher for English, which was very helpful to her. It was at this point that she had the first Educational

Psychologist report undertaken, which showed she was both dyslexic and dyspraxic. Her parents took a very positive approach, focussing Grace’s energy into what she was good at, without putting undue pressure on her or making a fuss about her dyslexia and dyspraxia. Grace’s experiences with the other children at this school were positive, the other children looked after her by stepping in and doing things for her.

Before entering nursing she had qualified as a nanny working with children with learning disabilities, exiting the course as the top student in that year. She had also had a period of working as a care assistant with older people.

The following are a list of abilities and difficulties described by Grace as related to her specific learning needs:

• Being good visually. Often using visual cues to help her. The example she gave was of noting the shape of coins as well as the face value.

• Her short-term memory was poor, especially if given lots of instructions or if the instructions involved a number of unrelated tasks. She felt that her poor short-term memory affected her ability to read things like novels, as it was difficult to remember the story line.

• Verbally she was good, although some words were more difficult, especially terms or names she had not encountered before. It always took longer for her to learn terms that were unfamiliar.

• Grace’s biggest problem was spelling. She said that she normally spelt things as the word sounded to her, which meant she had problems when there were silent letters or unusual spelling.

• Grace described her handwriting as “child-like”; she used a combination of printed letters and joined up writing within words.

• She was aware that she needed more time than other people in completing certain tasks, such as writing and doing mathematical calculations.

Grace outlined a number of things that helped her learn: • Seeing it

• Being told it

• Learnt more by doing

• Liked to work it out for herself.

When asked about how she felt telling others about her dyslexia, Grace said 7 feel the need to disclose, not so that people feel sorry for me, but so that

Grace commented that she had trouble with people who classed all dyslexics as the same, where in fact there was a spectrum. She said she did not like being classed the same as someone who is only mildly dyslexic.

Grace was very open about have specific learning needs and had a positive self- image. This was due, in part, to the supportive environment she had at home and previous positive experiences in school and college.

7.2.2 Molly

Molly was nineteen at the start of the branch programme and lived with her husband and his family. Her husband’s brother was the only family member who was known to be dyslexic, however, Molly’s brother was poor at spelling which made her think that he might be dyslexic also.

Molly had always struggled with English in school with English being the only GSCE that she failed. She thought at that time that something was wrong, but put it down to the teaching she received, she said her GCSE English teacher was away a lot.

Molly was diagnosed as dyslexic approximately six months into the Common Foundation Programme part of the pre-registration nursing course. When she had her first written assignment returned to her, the feedback noted numerous

problems with spelling and grammar. She decided that it was time to do something about it and so visited the University Student Drop-in Centre. The officer who saw her referred her to Student Services, where she had an interview with the Dyslexia Tutor. After some preliminary tests she was referred to an Educational

Psychologist who confirmed that she was dyslexic.

The following are examples of things she found difficult.

• Molly was slow at writing, the faster she was required to write the worse her handwriting became. She described her handwriting as both “scruffy* and

• Reading and comprehension were difficult. She reported that she might have to read something several times before she understood it. Molly read slowly,

particularly when having to read long or unfamiliar words.

• Molly’s spelling was generally poor, in particular she had difficulty with every day words such as “they’re, there, their”.

• She reported that she would sometimes forget to do things. One area she worried about was taking handover at shift change over, she feared that in taking the time to write down the notes she may forget something she had been told.

Molly had no problems with mathematics and was assessed as being strong in this area. Her ability to visually identify items was also assessed to be very strong.

Molly observed that she liked to learn by being shown or told what to do and then practising the activity herself.

Molly was “distraught” when initially diagnosed as dyslexic and harboured some anger towards the school for not diagnosing her as a child and offering her support. She felt that if she had received help in school, maybe she “wouldn’t be

as bad noW'. The diagnosis of dyslexia had affected her confidence and she

worried about what other people now thought about her. Her biggest worry was that other nurses would think that because she had difficulty with her spelling that she should not become a nurse, although at the beginning of branch no one had actually said this to her. Since her diagnosis she also found it difficult to relate to her personal tutor, who was a middle-aged man. She said, “Until this happened it

didn’t bother me having a man tutor. Now I think I can’t approach him”. Generally

Molly lacked confidence at the beginning of the branch programme.

7.2.3 Shaun

Shaun was forty at the start of the branch programme and lived with his girlfriend in the local community. Since leaving school he had experienced a number of jobs, including gardener, doorman, fitness trainer and for the last fourteen years was a support worker in the mental health field. Shaun was the only member of his

family formally diagnosed as dyslexic although his older brother and father had difficulty with spelling, which may indicate that they were dyslexic.

Shaun had struggled in school particularly with his reading. He felt he could

explain things well or have in his head what he wanted to say, “Could think cleahy but found it difficult to put it down on paper. Shaun also found learning the times tables difficult. As a result he tried various tactics to avoid school particularly if there was a test due or if he was required to read/recite something out loud. He described himself as a shy boy who was sometimes “cheeky’ or “lippy” when asked to do the things he found difficult. He covered up his problems by being “difficult” Shaun’s main strength in school was art, which he continued to do into his adult life. Shaun was not diagnosed as dyslexic during his schooling and no one suggested to him or his family that he might have a problem.

Shaun was diagnosed as dyslexic about eight months through the Common Foundation Programme. During a clinical placement he spoke to a fellow student who was dyslexic about his worries for the exams that were set towards the end of the first year. The student asked Shaun to describe the type of things he was worried about. Shaun gave him examples such as being slow in writing,

transposing letters and not knowing how to spell small words. This student advised him to take a test for dyslexia as Shaun was describing similar problems to those he experienced. Although a little sceptical, Shaun went to the Student Support Unit within the University and met with the Dyslexia Tutor. She carried out preliminary tests and referred him on for an assessment with an educational psychologist. Shaun recalled that one of the preliminary tests showed up his confusion with right and left. The Educational Psychologist told him that he was definitely dyslexic and was in the bottom 3% of the population in terms of his short-term memory. He had been very surprised and angry about the diagnosis.

The following is a summary of the areas Shaun had difficulty with:

• The biggest problem was his short-term memory. He sometimes forgot to do things he had been asked to do and often lost things like his car keys. When typing something he would sometimes forget where on the keyboard

a particular letter was and would spend time searching for it. He also had problems in putting names to faces.

• Shaun reported that things happening in his environment easily distracted him and so when he needed to concentrate he preferred a quiet

environment.

• When reading text it sometimes looked as if part of the word rose up

fractionally off the page towards him. He also said that when reading a word he didn’t always see all of the letters that made up the word and therefore had difficulty determining its meaning of the word.

• Shaun had difficulty with spelling and wrote letters the wrong way around e.g. ‘siad’ instead of ‘said’, or ‘thier’ instead of ‘their’. He found it difficult to spell small words like ‘there’. He also reported that he was slow in writing, which meant he often failed to put down on paper all of the ideas he had in

his head.

• Shaun felt able to do simple arithmetic provided he had plenty of time to work it out. However, things like percentages and fractions were still very difficult.

Shaun had strengths in picking up on visual cues, which was particularly useful in his work as a support worker in the mental health field, was good at problem solving and was verbally articulate.

Shaun felt quite angry with his school for not identifying that he had a specific learning need. He said he felt the school had “let him down". Now that he had been diagnosed a part of him wanted to go back to the teachers who had given him a hard time in school to tell them of his diagnosis and to show them he “wasn’t

thicK'. At the beginning of the branch programme Shaun appeared to lack

confidence and was anxious about his academic abilities, although on the surface he appeared to be a very open and confident individual. He had no difficulty in telling other people about being dyslexic. He was very determined to succeed on the course in order to prove himself able, as he felt that he had been “held bacK' all his life.

7.2.4 Steve

Steve was forty-eight at the start of the branch programme and lived locally with his wife. Since leaving school he had undertaken a number of jobs including biological chemist, senior electronic technician and worked in the printing industry. He had decided to train as a learning disability nurse partly because his father and grandfather had been a nurse and medical orderly respectively, and his wife worked with people with learning disabilities. He said he wanted to “give

something back to the community.

Steve believed that his father, brother, sister and nephew were dyslexic, as they each had problems with reading and spelling, although none had been formally diagnosed. Steve had a disrupted education, attending thirteen or fourteen schools including overseas, as his father had been in the Forces. Although he always knew he had problems with English and to a lesser extent mathematics, he put this down to moving schools constantly and having an eight month break due to health problems. Although his father had similar problems to Steve, he was not particularly supportive when Steve was growing up.

Steve decided soon after he had started on the pre-registration nursing course that he would seek help with his writing. As soon as he had an assignment to write he went into the Drop-in Centre and sought advice on writing the assignment. The Dyslexia Tutor he saw did some preliminary tests and referred Steve on to the Educational Psychologist for testing. This test confirmed he was dyslexic. The report confirmed that problem-solving abilities were extremely high - classified as very superior category. Steve had a spelling age of 16 and a reading

comprehension age of 12.

Steve’s reaction to the diagnosis was “/ felt like someone had hit me round the

back of the head with a bat or something. He felt quite angry at the diagnosis. He

also said that he felt frustrated about the things that had happened to him when he was much younger. He said he “felt let down” and asked, “Why me?" He had decided to address these feelings by being open with other people about being dyslexic.

The types of things Steve had difficulty with included:

• He was “weak” at spelling particularly small words like ‘there’ and ‘their’. Although aware of the problem, he made the same mistakes repeatedly. He would sometimes write the letters within a word the wrong way around. • Steve described himself as having a “busy brain”, which meant that he

jumped from idea to idea when speaking with others. Verbal communication therefore appeared disjointed at times.

• Steve had a poor short-term memory and had particular problems with remembering people’s names.

• He preferred to read black text from coloured paper rather than white paper, as it was clearer

• Steve had difficulty reading and pronouncing unfamiliar terms, and needed unfamiliar terms read to him by another person initially. He had problems with comprehension, often it took two or three reads for him to understand fully. Steve had come to realise that because he was struggling with reading the individual words he was losing the meaning of the whole text. He felt he expended a lot of effort in trying to say the word in his head and once that need has been taken away he was able to concentrate on the meaning of the sentence.

Steve had developed abilities in mathematics through his working life, finding geometry easier than other elements of the subject, in school he had great

difficulty in learning his times table. He was good at identifying visual patterns and used visual cues in learning and problem solving. Steve was able to quickly pick up an activity or skill with minimum demonstration. Steve preferred to use two senses when trying to understand something, e.g. would read aloud from the text so that he could hear, as well as see, the text.

Steve made the decision to be open about his specific learning needs but as he entered the branch programme was unsure of himself and his ability to cope on the course.

7.2.5 Summary

The two male and two female students who took part in stage two of the study ranged between 19 and 48 years of age. Three out of the four were diagnosed as dyslexic while studying on the pre-registration programme. As can be seen from the individual descriptions above, the diagnosis as an adult had a significant effect on self-confidence and triggered feelings of anger and frustration because their specific needs had not been identified while they were children. There was also evidence that the diagnosis came as something of a relief as they now had evidence that they were not stupid as they had previously feared and been

accused of by their teachers and others. Grace, who was diagnosed as a child and supported through her schooling, did not express these types of feelings. These feelings about the diagnosis mirror those expressed by the seven students

interviewed in stage one, and support the findings by Riddick (2000) and Dale and Taylor (2001) in respect of reduced self-esteem and confidence in adults

diagnosed as dyslexic.

The problems experienced by the students in stage two had a number of similarities. All had:

• Difficulty with spelling, particularly everyday words such as ‘there’, ‘they’re’ and ‘their*

• Transposing of letters within words • Slow at reading and writing

• Difficulty in reading and pronouncing unfamiliar, long or unusual words • Had to read text a number of times to gain comprehension

• Poor short term memory

Not all of the students had problems with mathematics, Molly was strong in this area and Steve had developed skills through his work. All of the students had untidy handwriting.

On the positive side most described themselves as being good with people and used visual cues in learning and problem solving. Three students described themselves as good verbal communicators. Steve said he had got on well with

people but jumped from idea to idea when speaking with others. All felt they