2015/07/03 by Nancy Doyle, Almuth McDowall · 2 citations
Medicine · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Applied psychology #Coaching #Cognition #Developmental psychology #Disability Education and Employment #Dyslexia #Educational and Psychological Assessments #Intervention (counseling) #Literacy #Medicine #Pedagogy #Population #Psychiatry #Psychological intervention #Psychology #Reading (process) #Reading and Literacy Development #Working memory
paper · doi:10.1080/17521882.2015.1065894
openalex publication_date 2015/07/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Our primary purpose in this paper is to (a) outline the heretofore limited investigation and understanding of dyslexia in adults and (b) assess the impact of coaching as reasonable adjustment for this significant proportion of the working population, who receive little attention in the coaching, work performance and indeed disability literature. A Social Cognitive Learning Theory-based coaching intervention was implemented with 95 dyslexic coachees who, along with 41 line managers, provided independent ratings of work performance both before and after the coaching was conducted. Analysis of the coaching topics revealed a higher prevalence of working memory, organisational skills and time management than literacy difficulties. Paired samples t-tests revealed significant differences between the time intervals and large effect sizes (coachees: t (92) = 19.35, p < .001, d = 1.94; line managers: t (40) = 10.72, p < .001, d = 0.85) indicating that work performance improved over time. The study supports the definition of dyslexia as a life-long, cognitive condition; the group comparisons demonstrated that coaching can address occupational performance deficits in executive functions as well as literacy.