Submitted by Victoria Wardman for the Doctor of Clinical Psychology (Clin.Psy.D) and entitled Physical Disabilities: Pictorial Representation and Self-Perception, June 2008. Background: Adults and children with physical disabilities are known to be vulnerable to stigma, abuse and psychological distress. 'In My Shoes', an existing computer assisted interview, was designed to help vulnerable children communicate about their feelings and experiences. In order to develop 'In My Shoes' to meet the needs of those with physical disabilities, evidence needed to be gathered for the ways in which people with physical disabilities would choose to be represented pictorially and to examine factors which would influence this. The physically disabled population is under researched, with no previous studies having examined this field. Objectives: The aim of the research was to explore how adults and children with physical disabilities would choose to be shown in pictures, specifically examining whether a persons' mobility aid becomes incorporated into their pictorial selfrepresentation. A factor hypothesised to be related to pictorial representation was selfperception. Therefore, the differences in self-perception scores of those who included their mobility aids and those who did not were analysed. Design: Two exploratory studies using non-experimental single group designs were utilised. Study One examined pictorial representation in adults with physical disabilities through the use of an Image Selection task and compared those who included their aid in their image selection and those who did not on their Adult Self-Perception Scale (ASPP) scores. Study Two examined pictorial representation in children with physical disabilities using a Self-Portrait task and Image Selection task. The scores on the SelfPerception Profile for Learning Disabled Students (SPP-LD) were compared for those who included their aid in the pictorial representation tasks and those who did not. Methods: For Study One, 78 adult participants were recruited from discussion groups on the internet. Adult participants completed an Image Selection task and the ASPP. For Study Two, 28 children and young people were recruited from a specialist database, sports academy and educational organisations. The children completed a Self-Portrait task, Image Selection task and the SPP-LD. Results: For Study One, the majority (77%) of adult participants included their mobility aid in their choice of image to represent them. There were no significant differences in ASPP scores between those who included their aid and those who did not on the Image Selection task. For Study Two, the majority (70%) of child participants did not include their mobility aid in the Self-Portrait task, but the majority (75%) did include it in the Image Selection task. There were no significant differences in SPP-LD scores between those who included their aids and those who did not on the pictorial representation tasks. For both studies, no clear trends emerged to reveal which factors predicted the inclusion of a mobility aid in the pictorial representation tasks. Conclusions: These two studies revealed that the majority of people with physical disabilities would choose to be represented pictorially by an image which contains their mobility aid. Self-perception was found not to be related to how people would choose to be represented pictorially. The findings have demonstrated that tools such as 'In My Shoes' need to ensure that people with physical disabilities are considered in their development in order to make them accessible and relevant to the users.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:491143 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Wardman, Victoria |
| Publisher | University of Manchester |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
Page generated in 0.0013 seconds