Life Success
For Students With Learning Disabilities:
A Teacher Guide
Success Attribute Research
This teacher’s guide is based on a 20-year longitudinal research project conducted by the Frostig Center in Pasadena, California. The project has traced the lives of a group of individuals who were identified as having a learning disability in childhood and attended the Frostig Center between 1968 and 1975. The purpose of the study was to identify those factors that lead to positive life outcomes in persons with learning disabilities.
We believed that making such determinations or “predictions” would be of tremendous value in helping students with learning disabilities reach their full potential and lead satisfying and rewarding lives. We needed to understand why, despite similar backgrounds and learning difficulties, some of our students ended up as happy, satisfied, and productive members of society, whereas others were barely able to “keep their heads above water” emotionally, socially, and financially. We needed to know why one former student is currently president of a software company, while his classmate is living out his days in a state penitentiary.
In an effort to gain such an understanding, we initiated a 20-year follow-up study designed to identify various factors in the lives of our students as they grew up that led some to “success” and others to “failure.”
In 1992, we reported the results of a 10-year follow-up study that focused on identifying the internal factors and external events in the lives of our study participants when they were young adults (18-22 years of age) that discriminated between those who were “successful” and those who were not. Participants were identified as “successful” or “unsuccessful” using a multidimensional definition of success that included: employment, education, independent living, family relations, social relationships, crime/substance abuse, life satisfaction, and physical and psychological health. Data were collected from interviews, standardized testing, and educational, psychological, and medical records. A quantitative analysis of the data revealed few meaningful, significant differences between the successful and unsuccessful groups based on background variables (age, gender, family socioeconomic status, ethnicity, birth order, number of siblings, IQ, diagnostic category, or services received at Frostig), cognitive measures, or academic achievement. It appeared that success might be related to other factors in the lives of these individuals.
A qualitative analysis proved more fruitful in revealing a set of “success attributes” that differentiated the groups, with the successful group illustrating greater self-awareness/self-acceptance of the learning disability, proactivity, perseverance, emotional stability, appropriate goal setting, and the presence and use of effective social support systems. Further exploration of these attributes became a key goal at the 20-year follow-up when our study participants were adults (28-35 years old).
Additional questions were investigated in the 20-year follow-up study, the quantitative results of which were reported in 1999. Using a multidimensional view of success as in the 10-year study, participants were again rated either successful or unsuccessful. All available information was reviewed, including background information, current testing data, public records, relatives and other contacts, participant contacts, and most important, transcripts of the 2- to 6-hour interviews with participants.
Again, initial quantitative analysis revealed no significant differences in background variables between the successful and unsuccessful groups. The major goal of the 20-year study was to discover whether the presence or absence of the success attributes, would emerge as variables explaining these differences in life outcomes. A series of statistical analyses showed that the success attributes were highly predictive of achieving life success, even more so than such factors as academic achievement, gender, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and even IQ.
Although the statistical analysis was immensely valuable, and provided a springboard from which to develop interventions that promote life success, we wanted to develop a deeper and richer understanding of the success attributes. Therefore, we conducted a qualitative analysis that focused on the “insider’s perspective,” that is, what the participants in the study themselves had to say - in their own words - about living with learning disabilities. A detailed analysis of the interview transcripts provided such an understanding and was reported in another study in 2002.
The description of the success attributes presented in this guide is based upon this qualitative analysis and utilizes quotes from the participants themselves to shed further light on each success attribute.
Next: Understanding Success Attributes
|
