Cognitive Ability and Personality in the Vocational Adjustment of the Profoundly Deaf

Abstract

This paper describes a study of the Vocational Adjustment of a sample of 99 young workers who qualify for inclusion on the disablement register due to early profound deafness and concomitant speech handicap. Some results of this study are given and recently established techniques of improving Vocational Adjustment and stability derived from these results outlined. The starting point for a systematic approach to the improvement of Vocational Adjustment is a follow-up study relating past and present occupations to standardised tests and ratings given some two years previously during the worker's sixteenth year. The follow-up criteria of Vocational Adjustment could have variously included vocational aspiration level, salary expectancy, job satisfaction, attitudes to authority, and supervisors assessments of efficiency but, due to the fact that the sample was widely dispersed throughout Scotland with virtually one work-place per person, economy dictated a simpler approach and the broader, more comprehensive criteria of eventual Occupational Grade and Turnover Rate were adopted. Obviously, suitable placement in acceptable occupational grades would tend to foster vocational stability and to decrease turnover so that the two criteria are not unrelated: more precisely, about 85 percent of workers in skilled grades remained in their first job as against about 33 percent of unskilled workers who did so. It was found possible to treat Occupational Grade as a continuous variate and to assess test and rating variates against this criterion by product moment correlation coefficients. The Turnover criterion was not distributed in such a way as to allow the valid calculation of correlation by parametric methods, therefore comparison with test and rating variates was made by use of contingency tables. The three main areas where the relationship to the follow-up criteria was explored were (1) extent and aetiology of hearing loss (2) performance on cognitive tests of intelligence, attainment and communication (3) personality and social data.

The results of follow-up against the Occupational Grade criterion produced a number of significant validity coefficients indicating useful associations in these main areas of study thus: —

1. Within this profoundly deaf population the extent of hearing loss did not relate to occupational grade, neither was any association between aetiology and this criterion obtained. Residual hearing was significantly correlated with the Speech Test alone of the cognitive test battery.

2. The correlation of the criterion with intelligence tests suggested that seriation problems are more valid indicators of occupational potential than other paper and pencil intelligence tests which in turn are more relevant than performance tests.

3. Personality ratings did not all yield linear relationships suited to follow-up by correlation coefficient but where this was possible, as in the normally distributed rating of Persistence, a relatively high positive correlation of r = .455 with the criterion was obtained. Finally the influence of socioeconomic background was examined via Occupational Grade of Father which was compared with the criterion. Here the statistical picture was of regression towards the mean with the offspring of unskilled workers equally likely to be skilled or semi-skilled as unskilled and the offspring of clerical and professional workers more likely to belong to the skilled manual than clerical grades and very unlikely indeed to attain professional status. The results of the follow-up study of assessments at sixteen against the Turnover criterion confirm the need for vocational after-care in a situation where over one third of the sample have had two jobs or more and one sixth of the sample three jobs or more within about two years of leaving school. The correspondence of several Personality ratings with Turnover was markedly significant.

In conclusion, the ways in which the results of this follow-up study have been applied to improve Vocational Adjustment are outlined. A systematic approach to Vocational Guidance and a classified search list giving the basic requirements for over 200 occupations open to the deaf is described. Another application has been to feed back information to schools in order to develop realistic vocational ambitions and in some cases to tailor the curriculum more closely to individual needs. Again, the tests and ratings may be used to provide an early warning to indicate to welfare and rehabilitation agencies those workers who are turnover risks most likely to need protracted guidance and who, in extreme cases, may benefit from a period of stabilisation in hospital, sheltered workshop or rehabilitation centre. Finally, a standardised profile of the cognitive test battery comparing individual performance with the profoundly deaf norm may indicate areas of ability which are useful for rehabilitation training and, at the other end of the occupational ladder, indicate suitability for further education.

Résumé

Ce mémoire rend compte de travaux relatifs à l'adaptation professionnelle de 99 jeunes travailleurs, handicapés sur le plan de la parole par suite d'une surdité précoce très prononcée. Chacun des sujets de ce groupe fut soumis, au cours de son dernier trimestre de scolarité, à un ensemble complet de tests et d'appréciations concernant ses capacités de perception sensorielle et de connaissances, ainsi que sa personnalité. Une étude complémentaire, effectuée deux ans plus tard, évaluait l'adaptation professionnelle selon deux critères: a. l'échelon professionnel, défini d'après les catégories du recensement de 1961, et b. le nombre de changements d'emploi (Turnover). Des coefficients de corrélation et des tables de contingence furent alors utilisés pour comparer ces critères avec des tests et des évaluations effectués dans trois domaines principaux: 1. le degré et l'origine de la perte auditive; 2. l'état de connaissances correspondant au niveau d'intelligence atteint et aux possibilités de communication; 3. les données relatives à la personalité et au milieu social.

Les résultats montrèrent d'une part que le degré et l'origine de la surdité ne présentaient pas de rapports significatifs avec le niveau professionnel; d'autre part, en ce qui concerne les capacités sensorielles soumises aux tests, seule la parole était fonction du degré d'audition subsistant. Les relations avec les tests non-verbaux d'intelligence indiquèrent que les problèmes d'extrapolation permettent d'apprécier les possibilités professionnelles d'une manière plus valable que les tests consistant à compléter un dessin géométrique ou ayant trait à des problèmes concrets. En ce qui concerne l'évaluation de la personnalité, le degré de ténacité présentait un rapport assez étroit avec le niveau professionnel. Quand on comparaït ce critère avec le niveau professionnel du père, on observait nettement un nivellement vers la moyenne: les enfants de membres de professions libérales ou d'employés de bureau se rangeaient le plus souvent dans la catégorie des ouvriers spécialisés, tandis que les enfants des ouvriers non-spécialisés pouvaient, à proportions égales, soit devenir parfaitement ou partiellement spécialisés, soit n'acquérir aucune spécialité. La répartition du critère de changement d'emploi (Turnover) indiquait la nécessité de poursuivre l'orientation professionnelle pour un tiers environ du groupe considéré, et l'on observait une relation entre certains syndromes de la personnalité et l'instabilité professionnelle.

Enfin ce mémoire indique, dans leurs grandes lignes, les applications que l'on peut déduire des résultats de ces travaux, en vue d'améliorer l'adaptation professionnelle. L'emploi de tests normalisés à un certain niveau de surdité a permis d'organiser systématiquement l'orientation professionnelle et d'établir une classification: celle-ci met en relief les aptitudes sous-estimées et la possibilité de poursuivre des études. D'autre part, le fait de communiquer aux écoles les données obtenues a permis d'établir, compte tenu des désirs individuels, le programme convenant à chaque sujet et correspondant aux possibilités qui s'offrent effectivement à lui sur le plan professionnel.