Personality characteristics of physically impaired adolescents

Investigated MMPI profile differences between disabled and nondisabled (normals). Comparison of mean raw scores on the MMPI was made by t-tests. A preliminary analysis that compared adolescents with congenital versus traumatic impairment yielded only one significant finding: Scale O (Si) (p is less than .05) for females with congenital impairment. Subsequently, after the congenital and traumatic groups for each sex were combined, t-tests were computed on mean raw scores of the MMPI for each scale between the disabled and nondisabled adolescent groups. The profile patterns of the disabled groups for both sexes were similar; however, the male disabled adolescents had significantly higher scores on Scales 1, 2, 5, 8 and 9, while the disabled female adolescents had significantly higher scores on Scales F, 1, 6, 7, 8 and 9. Inspection of the profiles revealed minimal sex differences among the disabled groups. It was suggested that the common factor of moderate to severe chronic physical impairment may serve to reduce normative sex differences in personality development at least as reflected by the MMPI.